Moments of truth
by Ke14uk
Summary: She should be dead. Again. And so should he. She had not been able to save him. He saved her. Again. She had thought him dead and she had given up. He never gave up. Takes place after Pandora/Linchpin.
1. Chapter 1

She should be dead. Again.

And so should he.

She had not been able to save him.

He saved her. Again.

She had thought him dead and she had given up.

He never gave up. 

* * *

Ever since Detective Kate Beckett had left the 12th precinct after the debriefing with CIA Agent Danberg, her mind was in overdrive. She could not stop thinking. This last case with the CIA was proving difficult to shake off.

Oh, who was she kidding? It wasn't just the case. It was Her. CIA Agent Sophia Turner. Castle's first muse. He had based Clara Strike's character on her. And he had slept with her too. They had an affair while he was shadowing her.

The CIA Agent had turned out to be one of the biggest liars Kate had ever encountered. And dangerous. So freaking dangerous. She had hurt Castle, and there was nothing Kate could do to make things better for him.

The worse was that deep down, Kate felt like she wasn't much better than Sophia Turner.

* * *

Kate was restless. She needed to do something that would distract her mind but also relax her at the same time. She did not have the strength to go to the gym or even just for a run. She'd had a bath, hoping to wash the tension of the day away and feel relaxed enough to enjoy a quiet night at home watching TV before going to bed. But it didn't seem to be working very well.

Kate was now standing in her kitchen, wondering what to do next. She knew she should eat but she didn't feel hungry. Well, anyway, she hadn't been grocery shopping this week so she had nothing much to cook. She decided to go for a glass of wine. It usually helped her unwind a bit. If she could find a TV programme to distract her, maybe she'd be able to relax enough to sleep for a few hours eventually.

Just as she was going to open the cupboard to grab a glass, there was a knock at the door.

She wasn't in the mood to entertain anyone. Maybe if she remained still, whoever was at the door…

"Kate!"

Another knock.

"Kate, it's Lanie! I know you're home. Open the door. I brought food."

Kate went to the door, looked in the peephole and true enough, she saw Lanie's face.

"Hi Lanie" said Kate as she opened the door. "Were we supposed to meet tonight and I forgot?"

"No" replied the petite woman as she walked in, going straight into Kate's kitchen. "I walked in front of that amazing Italian takeaway on 311W and 48th S and could not resist. But I took too much so I thought, why not share with my best friend?"

That place was also a restaurant and it made the best lasagna in town, and Kate also loved their Calzone. But their bestest was the seafood risotto. Just thinking about it made Kate's mouth water.

And Lanie knew that. No need to be NY's finest Detective to know that Lanie had stopped at that place for a good reason.

So Kate closed her door and walked to her friend to evaluate the damage. A large vegetable lasagna and, yep, the bestest risotto in the world. With some side orders, garlic bread, salad and a couple of desserts that Lanie quickly put in the fridge. Yep, something was going on with her friend.

"Have you fought with Espo again?" Kate asked.

Lanie closed the fridge door and looked at her friend with a frown. "No. This is not about Javier and me. You are not second best. I just fancied a bit of girl talk tonight. You have wine, right?"

"Yes, I have some wine."

"Good." And with that, Lanie took some plates, cutlery, and proceeded to take everything to Kate's living room while her friend took care of their drinks.

"And FYI" Lanie said as Kate placed the glasses and the opened bottle of wine on her low table and sat down, "Javier and I are not dating anymore."

"Why? What happened?"

"Nothing special, usual stuff. We like each other but I don't think it's the real thing. Not like Kevin and Jenny. So sometimes, we meet and we have fun together."

"And you're OK with that?" asked Kate as her fork dived in her risotto.

"For the time being" replied Lanie.

"So at the moment, you guys are off, right?"

"Yep."

So if tonight was not about Espo, and Lanie still felt the need to stop by for food she ordered for two, then there was something else she wanted to talk about. And she had that smile on her face, a discreet smile, but Kate recognized it. So that was the reason for their impromptu evening: Lanie had met a man.

And just like that, it looked like the evening was everything Kate needed to change her mind. Definitely much better than watching TV alone!

* * *

Years of friendship had taught Lanie Parish that her friend Kate Beckett was a very secretive person. It had taken the detective a long time to open up to the Medical Examiner about her mum's murder and the impact it had had on her life. Lanie had been there when Kate had gotten so deep into the case that she had nearly lost herself. It had been painful to see her friend putting the files in an archive box, literally. Lanie had told her that she wasn't letting her mum down, Captain Montgomery had told her that as well, but she knew it was exactly how Kate had felt. It had been difficult for her to accept that she could not solve the case just yet. It didn't mean never, but that was what Kate had thought. Until Castle.

Lanie wasn't at Kate's condo by mistake tonight. She had talked to Esposito and Ryan but neither of them knew what their last case was about. With the CIA involved, only a handful of people knew the details of the case. Need to know basis, they had said with no effort to hide how gutted they were to be left out of it. The fact that even Captain Gates ignored what the case involved was a small consolation.

But Lanie wasn't here tonight to obtain details about the case. She was worried about her friend. 24 hours earlier, Lanie had been called on Pier 32 on the Hudson River to examine a body only to find out that Kate and Castle had escaped death very narrowly. And then, she had met the CIA people involved in that case. Well, «met» was a big word given that the woman who seemed to be in charge had ignored everyone, hardly said more than 10 words, none of which had been amicable. But Lanie had not missed the interaction between her and Castle and that was why she was here tonight.

Ever since her shooting less than a year ago, Kate had been even more secretive, discreet, than ever. Every time Lanie had tried to talk to her about her time in her Dad's cabin, her return to work, or Writer Boy, Kate had cut the conversation short. The fact that, at the pier, Castle had taken the lead to explain what had happened to this female CIA Agent had made Lanie very curious. And of course, there was also their «lovers' quarrel» as she called it, in her morgue a few hours later. So yes, Lanie wanted to know what all this was about, but most of all, she wanted to know how Kate was coping. Lanie knew she was fragile at the moment, emotionally speaking. She knew she was still seeing Dr Burke even though he had cleared her for duty. It was one of the rare pieces of information Kate had shared with her. So given the past few days Kate had gone through, Lanie just wanted to make sure her best friend was going to be OK.

Hence the food. She had picked it on purpose. Knowing Kate, she wasn't going to eat anything healthy, if anything. So yes, it could be considered as a bribe she guessed, but she really did not care.

Right now, Kate was listening to her talking about this new guy who has just joined her gym. And she was eating. This risotto never failed! And the wine helped her relax as well. All Lanie had to do was wait for Kate to finish her dinner and then she'd approach her on the real reason for her presence tonight.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Thank you all so much for your interest in this story. It's really amazing to realise that something you put on paper actually interest other people... And it's also the first time I finish a story and publish it. So I hope it will look believable to you and that you will have a nice moment with the story.

Chapter 2 is quite long, but it should give you an idea as to where the story is going. Happy reading.

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Kate put her spoon on the plate. "That was so good! I think it probably was the best Tiramisu I have ever eaten!" she said as she rested her back to the sofa, her hands on her belly. "I'm stuffed!"

Lanie looked at her friend and smiled. She'd had a great idea with this impromptu diner. Her friend looked less tense than an hour ago, so she considered phase 1 of her mission for the evening achieved: Feed Kate.

On to phase 2 now: Get Kate to talk. That one was going to be tricky and require more effort. But she was determined to try her best. Kate needed to open up. She had nearly died for crying out loud, nearly drowned, while on a case. Lanie was worried her friend's PTSD might come back for a visit. She wanted to make sure Kate was OK and not shutting herself from the world again.

"Thank you for this, Lanie" said Kate, turning her head to her friend, a smile on her face. "I had no idea how much I needed this."

"I figured you probably hadn't had much time to shop with your last case, so we could come to an agreement: you have a nice diner delivered home and I don't overindulge on food tonight just because I was unable to resist buying half the food on display."

Kate wasn't stupid, she could see what Lanie had done. From the beginning her friend had bought diner for two, and she knew Kate would be home alone, trying to let go of a case as she's done plenty of times before. And true friend that she was, Lanie knew tonight was going to be difficult for her.

"Smart idea, woman", said Kate.

"I know" said Lanie, her glass in hand. "I'm good like that!"

They giggled. It felt so good to be light hearted after the hours Kate had spent going over the case. And she was worried about Castle, but at least he was home with his mother and daughter. He wasn't alone. Hopefully, they'll help him feel better this evening.

She wished she could be there for him. But it wasn't her place. She had made sure never to be this close to him. Because she didn't feel worth it.

And the old fears crept back in. She felt the anguish rise again, her throat tighten. It was as if the last hour had not happened.

Lanie was watching Kate closely and she saw the frown coming back on her friend's face, the sadness in her eyes, the rise in her shoulders as she readjusted her posture. It was her opening. Hopefully she'd be able to help her. If Kate let her of course.

"What is it, Kate?" Lanie asked softly.

Usually, Kate would wave this question away and start another subject of conversation, anything but work and Castle. But not tonight. For some reason, she needed to talk and share what was going on in her head, or she feared she might go crazy.

"I hate this case" she whispered.

"The one with the CIA?" Lanie asked.

Kate nodded, her eyes looking at her hands on her knees. "I can't help feeling that there's going to be a before and an after with this case."

"What do you mean?" asked Lanie, confused.

Kate closed her eyes, took a deep breath in.

_There you go_, thought Lanie, _she's backing down_.

"So many things went wrong on this case, Lanie" Kate said with a tired voice, not sure where to start. "Horribly wrong. It's a miracle Castle and I are still alive, and in some ways, it scares me."

"Why? How can that be a bad thing?"

"It's not" Kate replied. "Of course it's not. It's just that…" She was struggling sorting out her thoughts and finding the right words. "I nearly lost him twice in 48 hours. And both times, I was unable to do anything to save him." And Kate broke in tears. It was unexpected and it was violent. She could not stop the tears. It was as if they needed to come out and there was nothing she could do but let them pour out of her. Maybe it would take away this feeling she had that she had been so inadequate on this case.

The outburst took Lanie by surprise. What did Kate mean by "twice"? There was more than their dive in the Hudson? She made the effort to put her questions on the side. Right now, Kate didn't need her to interrogate her. So she got up and went to her friend to take her in her arms. These tears were probably long overdue by now.

"It's OK, sweetie. Castle's fine, so are you. Everything is fine. You can let go now."

Lanie held her best friend in her arms for as long as she needed her support. Then she went to the kitchen to make some coffee. When she came back to the living room, Kate was not crying anymore.

"Tell me what happened" Lanie said after she gave Kate a cup of coffee and sat down by her side.

Kate took a big breath in before starting her story, as if to take courage. Going back there was going to be painful, but at least this time, she'd do it out loud, with someone by her side listening to her words, not just reliving it all in her mind.

The images though, she could not share.

"When we were pushed into the Hudson in my car, I could not unbuckle my seatbelt. It was jammed. The water was rising fast. I went for my gun but I realised it had fallen and I could not find it. So Castle went to the backseats and looked under my seat. He came back to tell me he could see my gun and he went underwater again to get it. And then nothing. The only noise was the water rising in the car. God Lanie, it rose so fast and it was so cold and Castle was not coming back…" Kate had to stop to breath in again. Her body was reacting to the memory and she felt trapped again and cold and useless and scared. "I don't know what he was doing but I could not feel any movement underneath my seat or in the back and it was getting so dark in there. I could not see or find his body. I thought…" Kate's voice broke. She could not say it out loud. She took another deep breath before continuing her story "I tried one last time to open my door or break the window, which was stupid because I could not leave my seat anyway. I don't know why I did that. And then, I was underwater. And still no Castle. So I let go, Lanie. I gave up. I looked at myself in the rear-view mirror and thought «So that's it? This is how it ends? Well at least I'll die with him». And I relaxed my fingers from the steering wheel and just as I thought it was all over, Castle appeared, my gun in hand, and he saved us!"

All it had taken was one look in his eyes and her decision to let go had disappeared.

"He shot my seat belt, then the back windshield and we escaped my car. We swam together to the surface. Castle had had his last breath of air earlier than me so he struggled but he made it! We held each other for a moment when we were safe on the pier. I needed to know he was really alive. I needed to hear his heart beat. And then, Castle said we needed to call you guys, and well, you know the rest."

"Oh my God, Kate! I know you were in the car when it dived in the Hudson, but I had no idea it had been this close!" said Lanie. _And it's a miracle this experience has not triggered your PTSD already_, she thought. How could Kate still function normally after this? Anyone would be pretty shaken up by a near death experience and re-evaluating their lives but those two had just kept on working their case as if nothing had happened!

"It was very close Lanie" said Kate. "Every time I think about it, I can't believe we made it. We should be dead, the two of us." She looked at Lanie. "I gave up, but he never did. He saved us both. He did everything to get us out of the car and I did nothing. I just gave up!"

"No Kate…"

Kate cut her off. "It's the truth, Lanie. It was all down to him."

"You were stuck in your seat, Kate. So yes, it was down to Castle to save you guys. That's what partners do. If it had been the other way around, you would have fought teeth and nails, just like he did, to get you both out of the car."

Kate shook her head. "He would never have given up like I did. It's not like him."

"It's not like you either. You always go the extra mile to get what you want, especially when you work a case." Lanie took Kate's hand and squeezed it. "On your own, neither of you might have made it. I am so grateful that you were together when that happened. You are more than a writer and a cop. You are a team, you are partners, and you work very well together. Don't beat yourself up for what you thought at a moment in time when your life was threatened."

"I just feel so weak…"

"Kate, tell me honestly" Lanie said, maybe more sharply than needed. "Do you still want to let go and die?"

Kate shot a surprised look at her friend. "No! Of course not!"

"Then it's all that matters" Lanie said with a smile and she gave Kate's hand another squeeze. "You thought that in very specific circumstances. It doesn't define you. What matters is how you feel now. And if all you want is to live, then you're fine."

Kate let the words sink in. "Thank you Lanie." She realised that she had been so ashamed of her thoughts at that moment that she had come to believe no one would understand, because she could not either. But Lanie was right. It was a very specific moment, a dramatic moment. And she had survived it. She should not let it define her.

"You need to give yourself a break" Lanie added. "You were shot in the heart less than a year ago. Your recovery hasn't been easy, but look where you are today! Trust me, you are doing very well. You're exhausted after this case, who wouldn't? That's why you feel so low. Give yourself some credit for what you achieve. Take care of yourself, and I promise you, you will feel better soon."

Kate smiled. She knew her friend was right. She didn't have the best lifestyle but she also knew that she was lucky to be doing a job she loved and believed in. That was why she didn't mind so much if sometimes she missed a meal or slept very little. She was willing to do all she could to close a case, to bring justice to the victims and their families. She'd rest afterwards. Only that did not always happen. She could not really ask people to stop murdering each other just so she could have a week-end to recharge! That wasn't the way things worked.

So yes, Lanie was probably right. She was tired, this case had been difficult and it had drained her emotionally speaking more than other cases. It was probably worse for Castle. Kate still felt like she had let her partner down on this case. And she could not imagine how Lanie could look at it in any different way.

Lanie saw Kate frowning again. Now what? What was Kate thinking about that could change her mind frame so quickly?

"There's more, isn't there?"

Kate looked at her friend and then back at the untouched coffee mug in her hands. How could she explain this without revealing too much about a case that involved the CIA and national security?

Kate let her head rest against the top of the sofa and looked at the ceiling.

"Do you remember the two agents who came to the pier and Castle and I left with?"

"You mean Mistress and her boy?"

Kate looked at Lanie in utter shock.

"What? The woman is a control freak, it's obvious. I might be spending a lot of time with the dead but it doesn't mean I can't read people sometimes."

"What else did you pick up?" Kate asked, more out of curiosity at Lanie's discernment than anything else. She wanted to know what Lanie thought of Sophia in the short time she had seen her. Was she the only one who did not like her?

"Well, she had an impact on Castle. I even wondered at the time if he knew her from before the case."

When Kate raised her eyebrows asking a silent question, Lanie explained. "We were talking. Then she arrives, and Writer Boy walks by you to talk to her, as if he was somehow responsible for the situation. You are the lead detective on the investigation but he steps up to her, who is obviously in charge of the case on whatever level, to take any blame she's about to deliver. There was a story there. These two had met before."

Kate nodded. "They had met all right. She was CIA. And back when Castle started working on Derrick Storm, he shadowed her to develop his Clara Strike character."

"She was his muse?" asked Lanie, dumbfounded.

"Yep."

"You're not his first?"

"Nope."

"Damn!" Maybe it wasn't as bad as she felt. It made sense that Castle would meet with CIA agents for his books, it's called research and Castle was serious about his job so it would want to meet a real female agent to give some reality to his main female character. But Lanie was disappointed. She had really thought that his relationship with Beckett was a special one. And if their little quarrel a few hours later in her morgue was any indication, his relationship with Mistress had gone way over the framework of a professional one. Dared she ask?

"How long?"

"About a year."

"One year!?" Lanie had hoped for a couple of months at the most.

"Yes. He stopped shadowing her after they broke up."

Four years of following Beckett around and they were still just «work partners», but he obviously had had no problem sleeping with that muse! Lanie was mad at him, and really disappointed. Which was ridiculous. It happened years before he had met Beckett so it wasn't as if he had cheated on her. And anyway, the Nikki Heat series was way more successful that the Derrick Storm one. AND Castle showed no intention of stopping shadowing Kate while Mistress inspired him for 1 year only…

"Well" started Lanie, "I'm glad Castle's taste in muses improved with time!"

Kate suppressed a chuckle. Lanie and her repartee, what would she do without it?

"Nobody can know what I'm going to tell you Lanie. Not even Espo. And Castle can never know we've had this conversation. You understand? I'm not even allowed to talk about anything related to the case with anyone. So it's important you keep this to yourself."

"I understand." Lanie promised, braising herself for the next story Kate was going to tell. Even if Kate wasn't apparently allowed to talk about the case, if she needed to mention some parts of it to keep her sanity in check, she was going to give her all her attention and keep her promise of secrecy.

Anyway, it could not be worse than their near-death experience in the Hudson surely! Didn't Kate mention they escaped death twice on that case? Oh boy, she did...

"You know how Castle is" Kate said, "when he gives his trust, his friendship to someone, he gives everything. There's no limit to what he'd do for that person."

Lanie nodded.

"She betrayed him Lanie. In the worst possible way."

This was when things were getting difficult. How could Kate explain everything without risking being accused of treason against the United States of America? Maybe she should have thought about that before she opened her mouth! The truth was, she needed to talk about it, but she could not go to Castle for that. And she trusted Lanie, implicitly.

"She turned out to be at the heart of our case. She tried to initiate World War III and destroy our country and the world."

Lanie looked at her with incredulity. She was aware that her city was under intense watch since 9/11 and she had no problems believing that the city had been saved from potential attacks that the world was unaware of. But a new world war that her friends were involved with...

"I know" Kate said as she looked at her friend, "it sounds extreme but I promise you, it's the truth. This case was bigger than anything I've been involved with before. The CIA was involved because the threat to national security was real."

Lanie took a moment to digest this. New York, the city where she lived, had been under threat again. But all was contained before anything bad happened. And her friends had been involved. Once again, things could have gone so horribly wrong. "Is there still a threat?" she asked.

"No. We put an end to it. But it was close Lanie, so very close. And Castle, I'm worried that it might have hurt him more than he let show."

"How?"

"Everything she said was like the word of God. Even when she showed her real face, he refused to believe it. So she went personal." Kate could picture the scene again. "She made us kneel in front of her and while her accomplice went on to carry out their plan, she played with Castle. She revealed that she was a Soviet agent. She had managed to infiltrate the CIA to a very high level without anyone the wiser. She had played everyone who had ever been in contact with her."

"Including Castle."

Kate nodded. "And then, she said that she'd make our deaths look heroic, so that people believed we tried to stop the bad guys but failed. She said his dad would be proud."

Lanie took a second to make sure she understood. "Castle's dad?"

"Yes. She said he was the one who got him access to the CIA in the first place. When she realised that Castle did not know that, genuinely did not know who his father was, she said «I guess you'll never know» and went to shot him."

"Oh my God…"

"There was a gun shot, and then she fell on the ground between us, a bullet in the head. She had tricked another agent to appear as the bad guy but he worked her plan out. He found us just in time to stop her. And he saved Castle."

Lanie was lost for words. There were so many elements in this story that she found it difficult to have a full grasp of the case. But she could see one thing: twice Castle nearly died, and it wasn't Kate who had saved him. That was what was eating her friend up. "Kate, can't you just be happy and grateful that you both got out of this case alive? Does it really matter that you weren't the one to save him?"

"If only it was just that, Lanie." Kate was practically whispering and Lanie saw a tear falling on jaw. "I left him alone with her body." Kate raised her head and looked at Lanie, fighting the tears. "The CIA agent and I, we went to stop her accomplice before he could carry out their plan. I left him alone with her body" she repeated, ashamed of putting work ahead of her friend's wellbeing and safety, and now, the tears were pouring. "And when… when I came back to him... he was in the same position as when I had left him. Oh God, Lanie, he wasn't moving." She caught her breath before carrying on. "He was so still, I even wondered if maybe she hadn't had a chance to press the trigger before she was killed and I hadn't realised somehow. Which was ridiculous because he was still kneeling. But his eyes were blank. He was looking at her and it was as if time had stopped for him and he could not understand or believe what he was seeing. When I got close to him, I called him but he didn't move. I thought maybe he hadn't heard me. So I kneeled in front of him and called him again. Still no reply. So I took his face in my hands and said his name again. This time he seemed to get out of the sort of trance he was in and he looked at me. It hurt, Lanie, to see him like that. He was completely lost. I've never seen him like this. Then the CIA walked in and they took over the situation. I helped Castle to get up and we were taken away for debriefing. He didn't say a word during the ride. We were not alone so I didn't dare say anything. I just took his hand. He looked at me, smiled, and turned his head back to the window. But other than that, nothing."

"He was in shock."

Kate nodded. "And I understand that. Later, he asked me if I thought she had told the truth about his father. I said that I thought she had told a lot of lies. I don't know if his father is really a CIA agent, but I'm sure she knew exactly what she was doing when she told him that. She was the kind of woman who always wants to be on top and she knew it was a sensitive subject for him. You spotted it right away, she was a control freak. If I had not been so blinded by my own jealousy, I would have been able to see her for who she really was: a manipulative bitch who only cared about herself!"

Lanie could not help smiling because in the middle of all this mess, Kate was kind of admitting her feelings out loud. But she was also in pain. And that was heart-breaking to witness. She deserved better. Damn, Castle and her deserved better!

"Kate, don't be too hard on yourself. It's not your fault. She played everyone. The very people she had worked with every day for years had never made her out. But you guys won at the end, she lost. It's all that counts."

"I know" said Kate. "Castle said the same thing."

_Good man_, thought Lanie. She wasn't mad at him anymore. The man had gone through enough.

"But that's not my problem. The only thing I can think of is that I'm not much different from her." Kate took a big breath in. "I lied to him too. I've been lying to him for months."


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: Thank you for the reviews, favorites and followers! It feels really good to see that you guys like my story. Here is Chapter 3. It won't take me as long to publish the next one...

I found out today that Castle started 10 years ago. I wasn't among the people who watched the series right away. I joined in the middle of series 3. And then I discovered the fanfic universe. When I saw the number of fanfics that already existed for such a young series, and how amazingly good some writers were, it convinced me that the series was special and worth watching if it inspired people so much. It's the kind of entertainment I like, good quality, realistic and inspiring. You don't find that often nowadays. I miss Castle...

* * *

Once the gate was open, Kate could not hide away from what she had been obsessing about for the past few hours.

"When I was shot at Montgomery's funeral and Castle tried to protect me, he told me that he loved me just before I lost consciousness. Ever since I woke up, I've told him I didn't remember much about my shooting, just standing up there delivering the eulogy, and then falling to the ground."

Lanie was shocked. She had no idea Castle had said that. When Lanie had reached them after the shot, Kate was already unconscious.

"But you do remember his words?"

Kate only nodded, the guilt making her too ashamed to look at her friend.

But Lanie wasn't willing to let it go. "When did you start remembering?"

"At the hospital. But I also thought my mum had been with me so I just assumed I had made it up. I put it down to the trauma, the drugs, the surgery, you know… I understood it was real when I was at my dad's cabin. I remembered Castle's hands on my face, and feeling his breath as he was telling me to stay with him. I knew it was real then. I knew it was a memory."

"But when you came back, you never told him?"

Kate only shook her head.

"All this time, you never said a thing" whispered Lanie. Psychology might not be her speciality, but she knew hiding from the truth was never a good thing.

"I was in a very bad place Lanie. I hid from everyone. I could not deal with anything that had happened that day. When I came back, I decided to focus only on catching my shooter so I could find who's behind my mum's murder. I could not let anything interfere with that. I thought that once I find her killer and I have my answers, then I would be free of this case, and I could be with him, maybe. If he's still interested. But not before. And I was also mad at him for jumping in front of that bullet for me. And it wasn't the right time to start a relationship anyway, I was too messed up in my head. And I could not ask him to wait either, it wasn't fair."

"But lying to him is fair?"

Damn, that hurt! "No. No, it isn't. But it was the best option I could come up with at the time. I kept on with my therapy, as you know. I told Dr Burke the truth, we've been working on finding a balance. I still want to solve my mum's case, but I don't want it to define me anymore. I'll never be happy if all I have to live for is that case."

_Waouh_! Lanie thought, _that doctor is good! _She had not seen Kate this open and honest in a very long time. This was a huge step for her. Castle would probably be hurt by the truth, and she could understand that, but she knew he loved her. The ME could not imagine him not understanding her actions eventually.

Still it meant Kate had a long way ahead of her before she could be with Castle. And right now, it looked to her as if Kate felt she was at a crossroad as far as her relationship with Castle was concerned. She wanted things between them to change and she knew she had to take the first step, but she was scared of messing this up.

"Is this why you said earlier that you felt like there's going to be a before and an after this case with the CIA? Because you feel guilty about not being honest with Castle for the past few months?"

Boy, when Lanie was on a roll, there was no stopping her! Kate felt another pang of guilt in her heart and she closed her eyes. His face came up in her mind. The face he made when he realised who Sophia actually was.

"I don't want to be that woman to him. I want him to know that he can trust me. He matters to me, even if I can't say the words now, it doesn't mean the fact that the feelings are not there." Kate brought her hand to her heart. "But I'm so scared of screwing it up if I come clean to him."

"You know that the longer you wait, the harder it will be to tell him" Lanie said, heartbroken to see her friend fighting so much on the inside. But she had also come so far! "You know, maybe your chances of screwing this up as you say might not be as big as you think."

Kate looked at her friend completely dumbstruck.

"For the past hour, I've been listening to you talking about what you've been through with this case. You've never been this open and honest about your relationship with Castle. I can see how much you care. I think that is why you are so scared to mess it up. I know you feel like you are not ready, but Kate, it doesn't mean that you haven't made any progress."

"What do you mean?" How could Lanie talk about any progress when she felt so bad about her actions?

"You said it yourself: you'll never be happy if all you have in your life is your mother's case. I never thought I'd hear you say that! It is huge, Kate! You want more in life than just finding your mum's killer. It is still important to you, but it's no longer number 1. I think that escaping death twice on this case, as well as what happened with Mistress, all this has made you realised that Castle is now your number 1 priority, you just haven't seen the move happening. And it scares you, in a way. Because a case, you know how to handle it. But a man who matters so much to you, that's new territory for you."

Kate felt like her head was going to explode. Could Lanie be right? Had her relationship with Castle evolved so much without her realising it? Yes, she wanted more than just solving her mum's case, but it didn't mean that Castle had replaced her!

Lanie let silence settled between them. Had she been too direct?

"Kate?"

"I don't know Lanie" said Kate in a low voice. "I just don't know."

When her friend remained silent, Lanie decided to push her a bit again. "If there was one thing you could obtain right now, right this minute, what would it be?"

An image instantly popped up in Kate's mind: being in his arms. She wished she was with him right now and he'd hold her close, keeping the world away from them so they could just be together. And safe.

"Castle" she said. "I wish I was with Castle right now." Lanie was right, something had changed in her, she wasn't sure what though, or when, or how...

Lanie let go of a breath she had been holding in. In spite of what Kate had just told her, she was so worried she would say facing her mum's killer!

"No offense" said Kate with a smile.

"Oh, none taken sweetie" replied Lanie with a bigger smile.

Kate took a deep breath in. "How did I not see it? I remember very clearly telling Burke that I could not let my mum's case define me, it had been so painful to say those words out loud. It was as if I was letting her down again and it doesn't matter how many times Burke says that I can't do anything for my mum, that she's gone, nothing I do will change this. It still feels like I'm letting her down. I can't get rid of this feeling. But Castle, he appeases me. I know he will be by my side when I find her killer. I just know he'll be there. Every step of the way. I know he can be a jerk sometimes but he is also strong and reliable. I know that I can count on his help when the time comes to close this case once and for all."

"You see, this tells me that the time you took to heal, it was worth it Kate. You made the right choice. And if you can explain this to Castle, eventually, he will understand. You are scared, and that's OK. But don't let your fears take over. Look, I've seen how Castle has changed your life. You just seem to be happier when he's by your side, even when he drives you crazy. It's him you like, the man, not the author. We all know that he has enough material to write another fifteen books. He comes back every day for you, to be with you. Everyone can see that. I really believe that if you go to see him and explain to him what you just told me, he will understand eventually. So yes, you've been lying to him for several months, but that was because you were healing, Kate. "

"What if I've missed my chance?"

"Only one way to find out."

"What if he can't forgive me?" This scared Kate the most: that she could have stepped over a threshold that Castle could not ignore and that she'd ruined everything. "I've been lying to him for months, Lanie, what if he can't trust me anymore?"

"You have to know that he's going to be upset, maybe even angry with you, at least at the beginning. But he's smart, once you explain to him everything that you've just told me, I'm sure he'll understand."

"You can't know that for sure."

"No, you're right, I can't know that for sure" Lanie said, feeling annoyed that Kate was always going for the negative. "But I know how much he loves you. You have to expect that his reaction might not be full of understanding at first. You'll be telling him that you needed time to heal, he might hear that you took him for a ride. He's entitled to being angry."

"How do we go past that? How do I make him understand that I never meant to hurt him?"

"Be honest with him. And patient. Maybe you won't sort everything out in one conversation. So you both have to know that you're willing to work at your relationship and you have to give him the time and space he might need to sort things out on his side."

"I can't lose him Lanie. He makes my life so much better by just being my partner at work. I'm scared I'll say the wrong things and he'll just cut me from his life."

"Don't forget that he knows you. He'll understand eventually how difficult everything's been for you this past year. Well he knows that, he's been by your side ever since you came back from your dad's cabin. Your best chance is to be 100% honest with him and keep the communication open."

"What if it's not enough?"

"Then he's not the one."

That hurt. It wasn't possible. Kate had never had a relationship with a man like her relationship with Castle. She had never trusted a man as wholeheartedly as she trusted him. And that was why she felt so bad. Castle would never lie to her the way she had been lying to him since she's been back at work.

"Look, you don't have to make a decision tonight" Lanie said, seeing how her friend was struggling with the whole situation. "Actually, making a decision tonight would probably be a mistake given all that happened the past few days and how tired you are. Use the weekend to relax, and get your thoughts in order. There is no urgency, is there?"

Kate shook her head. "No. But I feel really bad about lying to him."

"That's because you care about him. Another reason not to rush into anything. Make sure you're ready to talk to him and know how you want your relationship to evolve once you guys have talked. If you go to him just to come clean, you might confuse him."

Kate felt like she could not go on like this. Sophia had crushed her partner's heart, she refused to do the same. Sophia had never cared about him the way she did. She loved him. And she knew it was really love, not a crush, not lust. He was the first man she wanted to be with every day, all the time. It was the direction she wanted her life to take. And that gave her something to fight for.

"I'll think about it."


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: As promised, new chapter. I hope you will enjoy it. Thank you for reading!

* * *

Kate woke up struggling to breath. She sat in her bed, her hands clinching the bedsheets. She was panicking, expecting to be surrounded by water while in fact, she was in a room. With air all around her.

_Bedroom,_ she thought between short breaths, her eyes quickly wandering around her. _My bedroom. I'm home. I'm safe._

She closed her eyes and focused on her breathing. Dr Burke had taught her exercises for situations like this one. Sadly, it wasn't the first time she needed them in the middle of the night.

She had to struggle on her own to calm down, acknowledge her surroundings and regulate her breathing.

She opened her eyes and took the time to adjust to the darkness in the room.

Eventually her heartbeat settled down. She could think better now. She wasn't really surprised that she was waking up thinking she was drowning. Lanie had left around 1 a.m. and all they had talked about was related to Castle and their latest case.

She looked around her in the bed. She was alone. Everything she did she did alone because there was no one by her side, because she did not allow him that place in her life. But it would be so much easier if he were by her side now… He'd take her in his arms and reassure her that she was OK. And she'd believe him because she felt so safe with him. Every time she had been in his arms, she had felt so safe. On the pier, two days ago, after he had rescued them, he had held her so tight in his arms. And she had returned the hug. She could not believe that he was really alive, that he had saved them both. A few minutes before, she had thought him dead and had decided to stop fighting. And then she was in his arms and she wanted to stay just there. He had been the one to break the embrace and mention to call 911 for help. Her mind had stopped working as it was focusing only on his arms around her, his body so close to hers she wanted to melt into him. She was drenched and freezing but she didn't care. She was in his arms.

She wanted to be there again. But instead she was alone in her bed recovering from a nightmare.

She sighted and turned to her bedside table on her right to grab her phone. 3:41 a.m. She knew she wasn't going to fall back asleep. The best she could do now was get up, take a shower and have some sort of breakfast. Or she could go for a run. No, it was too early for that. It would only underline even more that her day had not started on the best note if she went for a run so early in the day. So she chose the shower first, then food, and then she would decide on what to do next. One step at a time.

She took a long shower, washed her hair and started to relax a bit. Then she got dressed, let her hair dry naturally and went to her kitchen. She started on the coffee and looked for something that could pass for breakfast. But she wasn't really hungry. So she just put 2 pieces of bread in the toaster and got the maple syrup out.

She went to grab some paper and a pen. Dr Burke had talked to her about putting thoughts on paper when she was overwhelmed or lost. It could help her organising her thoughts. She gathered her coffee and toasts, and started to write down all that Lanie and her had talked about the previous evening.

A lot of good things had come out of their discussion. Kate wasn't sure she really was ready to confess to Castle, but she knew she needed to do it. To delay would only make things more awkward. She knew she'd have problems to look at him in the eyes on Monday without thinking _I'm lying to you _and he would notice something was wrong. She wasn't on call this week-end so she wanted to make the most of the next 48 hours. And she also had a feeling she would not be able to sleep well until she'd come clean to him. She would never really put this case behind her if she kept on comparing herself to Sophia.

She put her pen down and raised her head. A quick look at the clock on her oven told her it was now 4:19.

Too early for a text? If she could not sleep, could he?

If there was a chance that Castle was sleeping, she wasn't going to wake him up. So no, no text. Not yet anyway.

She could occupy her time another way. She needed action and decided to go and clean her bathroom and bedroom. She had planned on doing that today anyway, it was just a few hours earlier than planned.

About an hour later, her bathroom was sparking clean and her bedroom tidy but her emotions were still everywhere. So Kate decided to go for a run. She got changed, grabbed her phone and selected a playlist. Before she put the device in her pocket, she checked her messages and voicemail. Nothing. She contemplated sending Castle a text now but decided against it. Still too early. And if she did, she'd be more focused on her phone informing her of a new message than on her run. So she closed her phone, grabbed her keys, and left.

She ran for longer than she had planned but boy, did it feel good! When she got home, her head felt clearer. She went for a shower but only after texting Castle.

**slept well?**

She did not wait for his answer. After all, it was only 6 a.m., chances were he was still asleep.

Maybe she wasn't 100% ready to come clean to him but she refused to be like Sophia. She was going to tell him that she remembered everything, since when, why she lied, what he meant to her. She was going to fight for him, for them, because that was what she wanted: a "them". Maybe he was going to be mad at her but it was a risk she was willing to take. Even if she was scared of his reaction, she knew something had to change. She could not take the risk that his feelings changed because he got tired of waiting for her.

After her shower, she got dressed in her favorite pair of jeans and a light sweater, and picked up her phone.

She had one message waiting for her.

**not really. you?**

**neither. breakfast?**

He must have had his phone close by because she hardly had time to tie her hair in a ponytail that his reply came in.

**could meet you at the park for coffee in 1 hour?**

She knew which park he was referring to. And she knew she could be at his place before he'd leave. So she grabbed her purse, her keys and left her flat. She called a cab, got them coffees and some bear claws on her way to the loft. She was there 20 minutes after his text.

* * *

The knock on the door surprised him. Castle was finishing getting dressed, jeans and tee shirt, no socks on yet. His hair was still wet from the shower. And he wanted to check his phone to see if Beckett had replied to his last text.

And who could possibly show up at this hour on his doorstep? It could not be Alexis or his mother since they had their own keys and he knew where they were. So he quickly picked his phone on his bedside table and checked for a message while walking to the front door.

No new message.

OK. So get rid of whomever is behind the door and then call Beckett.

Castle opened the door a bit brusquely and came face to face with his partner. He looked at Beckett with big surprised eyes, then at his phone, then back at her.

"Hi Castle" Kate said softly. "I come bearing gifts." She lifted the coffees and the bag with the bear claws in front of her so he'd see them.

Castle smiled at her. Beckett bringing him coffee… He didn't know if it had the same meaning to her as it did to him, but she was here and seeing her made his heart beat a bit faster.

"I thought we were meeting at the park?" he asked while opening the door so she could come in.

"I know but your sofa is way more comfortable than the swings" replied Kate, and then she walked right past him to his kitchen.

Rick was so surprised that he giggled as he closed the door and turned around to join her at the counter.

He looked tired. Kate probably did not look any better, but seeing him helped.

"I wasn't sure at what time Martha and Alexis would get up" Kate said in a low voice "but since it's Saturday, I assumed it was still too early for them. I got them a bear claw each anyway."

He loved that she cared about the 2 women in his life. "They're not here" he said, getting a plate out for the bear claws. "Alexis is at Paige's, she'll be back in the afternoon. As for Mother, it is way too early for her walk of shame!"

"So you've spent the evening alone?" Kate asked, unable to hide the worry in her voice.

Castle chuckled as he took the bag of bear claws to empty it in the plate. "I'm a big boy, Beckett. I can spend an evening in my home alone."

"I know" said Kate as she handed him his coffee. "It's just that… after what Sophia said, I thought…"

Castle cut her off. " Yes, well, I think you were right about her. She told a lot of lies. She knew my father was a sensitive subject for me, so it wasn't difficult for her to hurt me with something personal."

"Have you told your mother?"

"No. And I won't" he answered looking at her, a silent request to her to keep that between the two of them. "Making my dad a spy was my way of coping with his absence and Mother knows that. So did Sophia. I think she said what she said only to feel like she had the upper hand." Castle took a sip of his coffee. "The more I think about it, the more I come to believe that she must have been a very lonely person in reality."

Kate could hardly believe what she was hearing. "You're feeling sorry for her?"

"No. I'm more …. disappointed. She really was a great agent, so good at her job. I saw her saving lives and doing really impressive stuff to put bad guys behind bars and protect the innocents. But the truth is she was lying every day to everybody around her. It must have been a very lonely life, to play a part 24/7 and at the same time to look for a way out. But I would never have imagined her deciding it was OK to murder a little girl in order to destroy world peace so she could be rich. I don't think I would have believed it if I had not witnessed it myself."

"I'm sorry Castle. For the pain she caused you."

Castle smiled at her. Kate looked so serious and worried about him that he felt the need to lighten up the atmosphere. "Well, I guess this is something that my poker buddies will never top: one muse tried to destroy the world, the other one saves it!"

This made Kate smile. "Yeah. Shame you can't tell them."

"Yeah!"

They remained silent, drinking their coffees and eating their bear claws. It was more difficult than Kate had imagined. She had yet to find a way to tell him the truth without destroying their relationship. The speech she had come up with earlier in the morning seemed to escape her now that she needed it.

She was so lost in her thoughts that she missed his question.

"A penny for your thoughts" said Castle after placing his hand on hers to call her attention.

"Sorry?" she asked, raising her head and looking at him.

"You seemed so far away just now. What's troubling you?"

"What makes you think something's troubling me?" Kate cursed herself for being on the defensive again. This wasn't how she needed to feel if she wanted to be honest with Castle. And he deserved her honesty, especially now that he was trying to overcome the hurt Sophia had caused him. She wanted him to know that even if she has deceived him as well, she was the muse he could rely on. And that implied no lie or secret between them. But boy was it difficult!

"The way you frowned" Castle replied. "You do the same when a case resists you."

Well, if that wasn't an opening.

"I can't help comparing myself to Sophia."

It took Castle a couple of seconds to process what Kate had just said. Maybe he misheard her? But the way she was looking at her coffee frowning, shoulders up, her hands on her drink, he recognized the signs when Kate was struggling with something. He wondered why she wouldn't look at him. He was at a lost as to what was going on in that beautiful mind of hers but he sure was going to do all he could to get to the bottom of it.

"Why would you compare yourself to Sophia? You two are so not alike! Well, you both are very smart and beautiful and can kick ass but that's about it. Your personalities are completely different and you would never, ever, do what Sophia has tried to do! You respect life too much."

"I've lied to you too" Kate said and then she looked at him. His big baby eyes were on her and she realised that he did not understand what she meant. "I remember everything. At the cemetery."

* * *

It was as if time was frozen.

Beckett was waiting for a reaction from Castle. Silence was not his forte, and the fact that he was just looking at her could not be a good sign. She got really scared.

Castle was processing Beckett's words. He could feel the hurt they had created in him, and he did not want to believe them. The look on her face was proof enough that she had just confessed to him. He saw 2 options from here: either he asked her for an explanation, or he asked her to leave.

"Since when?" he uttered "Did you remember at the hospital?"

"Yes" she said "and no."

Kate knew she was on a thin line. She had to pick her words very carefully from now on if she wanted him to understand why she had done what she had done.

"At first, I did not remember much. I was asleep most of the time and drugged. The first thing that came back was giving the eulogy and then, something hit me. Everything happened slowly. It got very cold and I could not breath. I remembered falling but that was all. It's my dad who told me that you tried to protect me but I didn't remember that."

His eyes on her were unreadable. She tried her best to keep looking at him because it was so very important that he knew she was being honest with him. But going back with him to this dark moment of her life was more difficult than she had expected. It was as if she could feel everything all over again, the pain her wound caused, feeling like you're in cotton because of the drugs, feeling lost, weak… All this with his eyes on her... She struggled to keep looking at him when she was feeling so crap. So she focused on her hands cradling her coffee.

"It came back as dreams, or nightmares, depending on the nights. The first dream was about my mum. She was telling me how proud she was of me, how strong I was. It was like when I had to go to the hospital to get my tonsils removed. Only I knew it wasn't that. Somehow I knew I was fighting for my life and my heart was the problem. But my mum was with me and she made me feel safe."

Kate could feel getting more emotional so she took a deep breath in and went on.

"Then, there was you. Your face was so close to mine. Your eyes were so sad, and you were scared. You kept on telling me to hang on, not to leave you. I could not understand why you were saying that. Why would I leave you? We're partners! I remember getting angry with you and thinking «Sometimes you say the most stupid things Castle!» But you kept on telling me not to go. I had this dream a few times before I actually heard you say…"

Kate stopped there. She could not say the words to him. She wanted to but they would not come out.

But he could.

"When I said that I loved you." His voice was emotionless, a bit harsh in fact. She had never seen Castle with such a close face. She realised that she still had no idea how this conversation could go, and it terrified her.

"Yes" she said softly. "There was this other dream as well, weird one. I was at my parents' home. I was in the garage working on my bike with James Dean."

Now that brought a reaction.

Castle was surprised. "James Dean?"

"Yes"

"The actor?"

"Himself. I'd say «in the flesh» but… well. I dreamt that we repaired my bike together." Kate leaned against the chair, her hands still around her drink and looked at him.

"These dreams were recurrent. I thought I'd created them at a time of need, of weakness, to help me cope with something that was too painful. Physically and emotionally. By the time you visited me at the hospital, I truly believed that they were just dreams. I mean, how could they be anything else? Two of them were about dead people, and one of them I'd never even met! I only had that poster of him on my bedroom walls, the one where he's on his bike, I'd seen some of his movies, but that's it! So the dream with you? It had to come from me, my own subconscious was playing tricks with me. I felt stupid... and ashamed. So when I told you I did not remember anything, I really thought I was telling you the truth."

_Please, please, please, believe me_, Kate thought, _because it is the truth!_ She did not know what else to tell him to prove her honesty, but whatever questions he'd have, she would answer, that much she owed him.

That was a lot to digest. Castle was overwhelmed by what he had just heard and at the same time, it kind of made sense. Beckett must have been given so many drugs after her surgery, how could she not have had issues with distinguishing dreams from actual memories?

"OK" he said softly "I think I understand."

Kate let out a loud breath and smiled. He understood! He wasn't mad at her! Well, at least for that part of the story…

"Thank you" she said softly, fighting the tears. She could not afford to cry now. This discussion was far from over and she needed to remain calm and focused.

"What about when you came back?"


	5. Chapter 5

A/N: Thank you for the reviews! They made my day. This chapter was really difficult to put together, so I hope you enjoy it. The next update will be probably be next Tuesday because I'm away for the week-end as of tomorrow. Have a great week-end everyone xxx

* * *

Castle wasn't giving her much time to appreciate how glad she was about this first part of their discussion. Maybe he did not want her to think that she'd gotten away with it easily?

"When we talked on the swings" she replied, taking a big breath in and looking straight at him, "yes, I knew I was lying." She saw the hurt on his face as her words hit him. The hurt, the anger, the disbelief, it was all there. She was doing that to him. Just like Sophia had hurt him.

No, she was not Sophia. Her presence in his home, this discussion, it was proof she cared about him, about their partnership, their friendship. She was here for him. "I lied about not remembering your words because I did not know how to handle it. I could not acknowledge your feelings."

If Kate's words had been bullets, they would now have gone through his heart, one for each word. Castle had had his heart broken before, but this time, it was worse. Because he had believed in them like never before. Kyra had been his first love and losing her had nearly destroyed him at the time, but he was too young then to know exactly what being a couple really meant, what commitment was really about. Two divorces later, he knew how different his relationship with Kate was and how incredible their lives together could be. But her words were painful to hear, they crushed him. So to protect himself, Castle let anger lead the way.

"Then why didn't you tell me that you did not feel the same way Beckett? I could have taken it. I would not have liked it but at least, it would have been honest!" he said, shouting at her.

"Is that what you think?" Kate asked, incredulous. She thought he knew her better than that!

"Don't you dare Beckett!" Castle said angrily. "Don't you dare lie to me again. I'd never forgive you this time."

She could not remember ever seeing him this mad at her. She expected him to be hurt but not to be shouting at her. She made an effort to remain calm because she wanted to explain it all, she wanted him to understand where she was coming from. Lanie had told her he might be angry at her. But it was a different story to actually experience it.

But he was worth the fight. She just had to remain calm and focused.

"No lies Castle. I owe you that much."

"Damn right you do!"

"But you have to understand that I can't always give you a yes or no answer. Nothing was clear in my mind at the time. I had told no one that I remembered my shooting, not even my dad, not even the doctor I had to see to requalify. It wasn't that I didn't feel the same, Castle, it was…" Her voice gave away. Why was it so difficult?

"What was it then Beckett?" he asked, pressuring her to give him answers now.

"I was so angry. At everyone, including myself. And I was scared too. But I could not admit any of it because I was worried I would not get my shield back if I did. All I wanted was to come back to work and find the son of a bitch who had shot me so that I could find whomever was behind my mum's murder. I could not allow myself to get distracted by anything else."

"Distrac…" Castle repeated, incredulous. Was that all he was to her? A distraction? Some kind of a goof who followed her around to amuse her? Could he be more stupid? Could he have read the situation so wrong?

"It all backfired on me anyway," Kate continued, not noticing the shock on her partner's face, "you know that, you were there. The first person to draw a gun on me and I froze. I'd be dead if it wasn't for you. That was a huge slap in the face. But I was too angry to accept your help. Only I wasn't too stubborn to ignore reality. Like it or not, I did need help."

Kate took in a big inhale and looked directly at Castle because she considered what was coming next very important. It had been a huge step for her.

"So I went back to therapy. And this time, I decided to be honest. I told my doctor that I remembered everything and we've been working on everything that happened that day and afterwards. It's not easy, but it's definitely worth it." _Because I wouldn't be able to do this now without all that work_, thought Kate.

Castle didn't know if he had to be mad at her or in awe with her. Right now, he knew nothing. He just looked at her, his arms crossed on his chest, waiting for her to tell her story. Because there had to be more than that. Her decision to lie to him was deeper than what she had given him so far. It had to be.

Kate could not read him, he was closed to her. She had never seen him like this, so far out of her reach. But she took his silence as a sign of his interest in what she had come to tell him. He was willing to go to the bottom of her story. All hope wasn't lost then. It gave her strength to continue.

"When I was at my Dad's cabin, and then when I came back, I was very angry at everyone, as I said. At Montgomery, for lying to me for so long. He had had all the answers I had been looking for since we first met, even before, but he never said anything. He kept me in the dark, made me trust him with my life, admire him even, to finally sacrifice himself so I could not have my answers. And now, his kids have to grow up without their dad. How can that be fair? I was mad at my shooter for being so fucking bold and shoot me at Montgomery's funeral, in front of all those cops. I came back two months later to find out that my case was cold because there was no lead, and I could not accept it. I was mad at the son of a bitch who was behind all that, who thought he could dispose of lives as he wished. What gives him the right to think so? How many more people have to die on his order? And I was mad at you, for jumping in front of me to protect me from a bullet. What were you thinking? With your daughter and your Mum in the assistance? And then, just as I was losing consciousness, you tell me that you love me. I could not understand. When I first remembered it, I thought it was me creating that illusion because I needed to feel special to you so I'd have someone to fight for. Never mind that you were not my boyfriend! When eventually I realised that it had really happened, it took me some time to get my head around it. I had broken up with Josh by then because I knew I wasn't in love with him and I didn't want his help. I wanted to recover, and then I'd go to you. But recovery was hell, so I realised it was going to take some time before I could go to you. And my mind was all over the place. Maybe you had told me that because you thought I was dying in your arms and I didn't want to have to face the fact that you might want to take your words back. Or you meant it. But in that case, I owed you an answer. And I could not do that. Because either I lied and hurt you or I had to say something like «Yes Castle, I heard you loud and clear. But I really can't deal with that right now, so could we just pretend it never happen and focus on finding my mum's killer?». Asking you to wait was not an option. So I chose to keep my distances with you. That way, you would not be willing to put your life in danger because of me, Alexis would not lose her father, and I would not have to lie to you. It seemed like a good plan at the time. But of course, it did not work out like that. I'd barely been back at the precinct that Espo and Ryan told me you had my case file and you were the one chasing leads. If I wanted answers, I had to talk to you. I was at a crossroad. So I chose to keep on with my original lie. It seemed the least worst option."

"You were going to stay away from me?"

"It was the only way I could keep you safe. I did not want Alexis to lose you because of me."

"Waouh…" said Castle. He could not look at her anymore he was so hurt. He took a few steps in his kitchen, going in a circle like a lion in his cage. He had never imagined she'd consider staying away from him as a solution to a problem. That was a whole different ballgame.

That hurt so bad.

"Look Castle, I know it's a lot…."

"Waouh" he repeated. "So you'd rather not see me than lie to me. I don't know which one is worse."

"No Castle, that's not what I said."

"Oh, on the contrary Beckett, that's exactly what you said. Least worst option, remember?"

"Yes but… No but… That's not what I mean." She was losing control of the situation and she didn't know how to get it back.

"So what do you mean Beckett? You said you owed me the truth, so come on Kate, I'm still waiting."

"I've told you…"

"Excuses" he interrupted her, incapable to hide his frustration any longer. "That's all they are. I do not doubt that you've been through hell after your shooting and I know that you're still suffering from it sometimes. But YOU made the decision to go through it all alone Beckett. You did not have to. Lanie, the boys and me, we would have helped in any way we could have. But no, Detective Beckett does not need any help. Because God forbid Detective Beckett felt anything that she could not control. And you can't control love. No one can."

Her heart was beating so fast, it felt like it wanted to escape her chest. Her scar pulled. But she would not let it show. He was furious at her. He didn't understand.

She needed him to understand. She did not want to lose him. She had to find a way to make him realise she always had his best interests, his safety at heart. It was not an excuse.

"All I want Kate is an answer to one question. A truthful answer."

Why did she feel like being swallowed by a quicksand?

"Did you lie to me, pretend that you had not heard me at the cemetery when I told you I loved you, because you don't feel the same way?"

_No, no, no!_ she thought. _It wasn't like that._ But the words could not pass her lips. She had to answer him otherwise he was going to have the wrong impression about her. She had to breath. She wasn't going to have a panic attack now!

Her silence was really infuriating him. And it was breaking his heart. One feeling made him want to punch holes in the wall, the other was bringing him to his knees.

But her eyes… If her mouth refused to answer him, her eyes did the talking. Fear mainly. Struggle, if her frowned eyebrows were any indication.

He was too angry to think properly. For some reasons, she couldn't, or wouldn't, answer him, so maybe it was better if they both retreated to their separate corners to calm down. At the very least he needed to calm down. To go on risked words spoken that could never be taken back nor forgotten and then it would really be the end of «them». No more partnership, no more muse, no more hope for a life together.

Rick shook his head, then passed his hands over his face, as if the gesture could somehow erase the frustration he was feeling and help him see more clearly. But when he opened his eyes, nothing had changed. For the first time, he needed to take his distance from Kate. He'd never thought it would happen one day.

But as often with her, she surprised him.

"You have come to mean so much to me, and I don't even know how that happened."

Kate could not bear seeing him like this, sad, angry and shouting at her. She could not bear the thought of making him feel like this. If he did not understand why she had made the decisions that had led them where they were now, then she had to find another angle, an even more personal one. Because losing him was not an option. Not anymore. So maybe she had to look at their relationship differently and say out loud what she hardly admitted to herself up until now.

"I meant what I said on the swings" she said in a low voice. "I have this wall inside me that I built up after my mum's death. When my dad turned to the bottle, it got thicker. I think I decided that if I never let anyone too close, I would never feel so much pain ever again. And since nothing lasts forever, I was bound to be hurt again. So I did my best not to let anyone close." She could see it so clearly now, how she had always dated men with jobs so consuming that there was hardly a chance for her to settle down with any of them. "But you?" she said, looking at him. "I don't know, it was as if keeping you at arm's length only gave you answers and you knew what to do next or say next to make me feel safe with you and make me like you even more. I don't know how to explain it, it is so weird."

He was frowning. Obviously she wasn't very clear but he was still listening, that was what mattered.

"You tried to protect me from a bullet, Castle. You were willing to take a bullet for me. And that scared me. It was an extreme situation and you made an extreme decision, one that could have cost you your life. And I don't want Alexis to know what it's like to grow up without a parent she loves so much. And I don't want Martha to lose her only son. Certainly not because of me. And I didn't want to put you in a situation where once again you'd make the same decision in a heartbeat, without a second thought about the consequences. So yes, staying away from you was the least worst option because it kept you alive."

Looking at the situation like that, Castle could understand. She thought she was protecting him from himself in a way. She didn't want him to die. Just like he didn't want her to die.

His frowned face relaxed a bit. Was she getting through to him?

"But there is something else. I wasn't only scared that you could die because of me. I was scared of the possibility that I would have to live without you."

He could not follow her logic there. She decided to stay away from him, so not to have him near her. Didn't that mean living without him anyway?

"I had nightmares, or a noise would frighten me like never before. I was weak, and I hated it. Every day I'd end up with my phone in my hand, about to call you. I wanted you to take the pain away. And I knew that if I called you, you would have come right away."

"Of course I would have" he whispered. Of course he'd come to her if she called him. How could he not?

Kate nodded. "So not only would I take you away from your mother and your daughter after they saw you jumping in front of a bullet to protect me, but I was also putting my recovery in your hands."

So he had been right. She decided to go through her recovery on her own. She refused his help even though she knew at some level that she needed him. She didn't want him around in her life, not like that. Not like he wanted her in his life. Completely.

"I've worked very hard to be where I am now. It wasn't always easy and I've had my fair share of doubts. But I hanged in there and gave it my all to be the best cop I could be. And you understand that. Some people make comments on my life because I am a woman in a men's world or because I'm married to my job instead of a man and they try to figure out what that means. But not you. No, you, you kind of catalogue everything, but you don't judge. And then you can say exactly what I need to hear to feel better or move on or not lose hope, because you understand what brought me here, what made me who I am. I've never had anyone like you by my side before. And when I was at my dad's cabin and I was about to call you, I realised that I had become dependent on you in a way. I expected you to always be there, by my side, and to help me with whatever situation I was facing."

Castle was speechless. He knew her well but only because she had come to accept him at work and little by little to trust him. He had no idea she looked at him like that. He had hoped to read the signs right and that she cared about him more than she let on, but that, what she just said, it was… intense. The words were going straight to his heart, mending it a bit.

"When I realised that, I understood how I felt about you, really." Kate took a deep breath. "I am in love with you." She had said it. She said the words, looking straight at him, seeing his face registering the words, and nothing bad happened. He was not making fun of her (not that she expected him to) or running away (no, that was her speciality) or turning her down because he was too mad at her or his feelings had changed. He was smiling at her. Not that huge smile that illuminated his face when he was happy, granted, but it was a smile all the same.

She had done it. She had told him she loved him and it wasn't that scary anymore. Well, it still was a bit but not petrifying anymore.

Only she wasn't done yet. So no running to his arms for a hug and a kiss. Not yet.

"You said that you loved me and I realised that I felt the same way. But it wasn't the answer to everything. I was still mad at you for what you had done at Montgomery's funeral. I still am in a way. So one way to protect you and keep you safe was to stay away from you. That's part of why I never called. I had no info that you guys had arrested my shooter so as long you weren't with me, I could believe you to be safe. When things were really bad, especially after I started PT, I would look at your picture on my phone or my books, for strength, hope of better times, I don't know what exactly. But it helped. So you see, in a way, you helped me. You were with me the whole time Castle, just not in person. And then I realised something else. Well, two somethings actually."

She could not backdown now. She was spilling her heart out to him and had to go to the end of it if she wanted a chance to have a life with him. She owed it to him. He was right, she had made the decision to live her recovery alone. He thought it was out of pride, but he was wrong. It was much worse than that. Her fears had nearly destroyed them, they still could, but she was determined not to let them define her anymore. She knew she could be stronger than them if she did the work.

For him. For them.

"The problem when you have a lot of time on your hands and not much to do, it's that you think. A lot. Sometimes, it's good, sometimes, not so good. And you feel like you're always going over the same things. It's a never-ending story where no character gets anywhere. And that was on a good day!"

Rick could not help smiling. Not that Kate was saying anything funny, but he liked the image. He'd had a greater impact on her that he'd ever thought.

And she loved him!

"I started thinking about what ifs. What if I can't get my shield back because I never recover from my shooting? What if they find me tomorrow and come to shoot me and I can't protect my Dad and myself? What if they kill me and my Dad finds my body? What if they go after you?" Kate's voice broke down at the end of that question, so she took a moment before going on. It had been one of the most awful scenarios she had come up with. "If you were to die, Castle, I would never get over it. And it would be even worse if you were to die because of me. I came to understand my dad's alcoholism after my mum's death. My parents were really happy together. And I believe they would have grown old together. He adored her. They were strong together in ways they would never have been separately. They supported each other in everything they did. Oh, they had their arguments of course, but they always made up. He told me that when she died, a part of him died as well, the part that made his life beautiful, fun, amazing, worth living. Without the love of his life, everything lost its appeal, and being alive meant being constantly in pain for him. He told me as well that he didn't want to feel anything because it was too damn hard. For once, I understood. So knowing you were alive and safe was more important to me than being with you. But when I came back and I was thrown towards you again, I had to adjust. At least until we solve my mum's case."

_Please tell me you understand now_, she thought, her eyes searching his face.

Rick did not like this trail of thoughts. You can't spend your life isolating yourself because you are scared of losing the ones you loved. That wasn't a life! You can't only see the negative in life, you'd never do anything! And Kate wasn't the kind of person to be scared like this. She was always so strong! That bullet had done more damage than just the physical wound. He wished he'd been there to help her.

Kate could see that Castle was processing what she had just said and if his body language wasn't telling her he was still furious at her, he wasn't either about to open his arms wide for her. His anger had diminished, but he still was waiting for her to be a 100% honest with him. And somehow, he knew she wasn't done, he knew there was more.

And he was right.

"It was weird" she started again, "because you were not with me, but you were in my thoughts all the time. Everything I did, it was to come back to you. I know it contradicts what I said earlier but I don't think I actually understood it until recently. While I was recovering, I realised that what I was doing was hiding from the truth: I was weak. My body was weak and very slow to recover. I was really worried I'd never get back in shape. I could not wait to start physiotherapy but once I did, every session was so damn painful and progress so slow. At least for me, my doctors were happy. But it wasn't just my body. If I ever was to be in a relationship with you, I wanted to be your equal. You deserve someone who won't be scared by her own shadow, stupid dreams and God knows what else. I used to feel like your equal, but not anymore. So I had a lot of work to do, and I still do. That's also why I went back to therapy after that first case. I had to learn how to deal with the aftermath of my shooting, my body was getting better and stronger, but my mind was still in pieces. I had to put the work in to feel good again in my own skin, and confident. I wanted you to look at me again as someone you admired, not someone weak you'd want to protect and help."

"You are not weak" Castle said rather sharply.

"Castle…"

Oh no, he's not letting her get her way with this one. "No Kate, I can't let you think that. For the past 5 minutes, all I've heard from you is how scared you are of everything, even your own thoughts, and how weak you are." Castle moved back to the kitchen island behind which she was sitting. "But look at all you've accomplished since you've been back. Admitting you needed help takes guts and I am so glad you have someone who can give you the help and support you need. You are not weak. Your wings might have been damaged for a time, but you fixed them with your courage, determination and hard work and now you can fly again."

The tears started falling and Kate could not stop them. "Damn you" she said, wiping them off her face. "You always say the sweetest things." In normal circumstances, Kate would have had a witty comment for him, but today, she could not find anything. She let his words touch her heart when she usually hides behind humour.

"I mean them Kate. You are stronger than you think. And you prove it every day at work, when you close cases and bring justice to victims and their families."

She shuddered. "I guess things always look different depending on the point of view you look from."

"You're welcome to try mine anytime. You'd be amazed by what I see."

Kate laughed. She walked into that one blindly… She looked at him and the love in his eyes went straight to her heart and radiated through her body. She was tired, long case, difficult case, lack of sleep, a very emotional morning. But when he looked at her like this, she felt like she could take on the world.

"Can you forgive me?" she dared ask, worried he'd still be mad at her.

Rick wanted to say "Yes, of course I forgive you" right away, but it wasn't that simple.

"You hurt me Kate. I appreciate your honesty today. I don't know what brought it up but I'm glad you came this morning and we talked. I understand better, I think. But there's still a lot to process."

"I understand, Castle." It wasn't exactly the answer she wanted, but he wasn't rejecting her right here and now, so she'd take it gladly. "I didn't come here today hoping that after I came clean with you, you'd open your arms to me or we'd end up in bed right away. I'm here because I need you to know that you can trust me. I'm not going to hurt you like she did."

Ah yes, that was it. Castle remembered now what had started her confession: Sophia Turner. Somehow, it tampered his mood.

"Sometimes it happens. When you truly love someone, you have the best tools to hurt that person."

"Sophia did not love you. I doubt she ever loved anyone. She was too angry. And jealous."

Castle frowned at that.

"She saw how annoyed I was that she was your first muse when I thought I was your only muse. She openly flirted with you and I hated it, just like I hated it when you two were in synch. I thought that was our thing. But you could do that with her as well."

"Jealous Beckett?"

"Hell yeah! But I should have seen through her. She told me that she regretted sleeping with you because it had hampered the flame and excitement you two shared before the sex." Kate shook her head. "I think she realised that you and I had something special that you two never had and that maybe you and I could work in ways you two never had. And she didn't like that. I think she wanted to be the only muse you would ever sleep with."

Waouh! Where had that come from? Kate really had not thought saying this out loud because it was something she had come up with last night in a bit of a desperate moment to prove to herself that she wasn't like Sophia. But now that she had said the words to Castle, the man between the two women, she felt, well, silly, pathetic…

"Jealousy suits you, Kate" Rick said, smiling.

"Shut up!" she jerked, feeling her face getting all red.

"And you're right. What you and I share, it's nothing like what I had with Sophia. It was just lust with her."

"Is that supposed to make me feel better?"

"I can make the difference Kate. What I feel for you, I've never felt it for anyone else. Somehow this time, I know it's the real thing. That's why I think we have to be careful from now on. We both have to know what we want out of this relationship before we go any further."

Kate had never expected him to be the one to say to go slowly. She wanted him, but she wasn't sure now was the right time.

"I'm not ready Castle. I'm sorry but I think that if we start something now, I'll screw it up somehow. There are still many things I need to figure out. The wall has nearly disappeared, but the foundations are still there."

Her mum's case. He was worried about it as well. How she'd react if she ever got answers, if she knew about what he had done, about his deal with M. Smith… He needed to figure out a way to come clean to her.

Seats had turned.

"I understand, Kate. If we do this, I want it to be forever. I want to be your one and done."

He remembered that? He was really amazing. And he was willing to wait for her. It wasn't fair, but it was a better place to be than where they stood until this morning. At least now she had a valid objective to work towards.

"OK. Good. I'm really glad I came then" she said with a smile on her face.

Now that they were on the same page, all tension vanished and suddenly, she felt really tired. Her head felt heavy, her body felt heavy as well. She needed some rest. She needed to go home and figure out her next moves.

She just had to avoid his arms, because if he gave her a hug, she was doomed…

Castle was exhausted. He knew he should be euphoric at least that Beckett had finally said the three words he had been so longing to hear from her. But he couldn't. He was hurt by her behaviour. If it wasn't for this case with the CIA, she would have kept on lying to him. He didn't know how to handle that.

But at the same time, he was amazed by her. She was so strong and courageous. It took guts to do what she had done today. It pained him that she could not see it for herself.

But before that, he had to find a way to tell her about his deal with M. Smith without her jumping head first in her mum's case again and forgetting (or should he say ignoring?) all that had happened this morning. And he knew there was a risk she might never forgive him his silence.

He didn't want her to go, but he thought it was best. It would give him time to process everything and organise his thoughts before it was his turn to come clean to her. That discussion wasn't one he could handle unprepared.

"I think it's best if I leave now" Kate said softly. "I think we both need to digest what happened."

"OK."

Kate got up and walked to the front door, Castle right behind her. When they reached the door, she turned around. There were so close, their bodies practically touching and she could feel his warmth and breath his scent in.

"See you soon" she said softly, fighting the urge to close the distance between them.

"I can drive you back if you want, or call you a cab" he offered as softly.

Beckett smiled. She wasn't the only one struggling right now. "I'll be fine Castle. Remember in our partnership, I'm the one with a gun, I can take care of myself."

"Oh I know you can. I just wanted to…"

"I know" she cut him off. "Call me when you want to talk."

"OK."

And with that, he opened the door and she walked out.


	6. Chapter 6

A/N: Thank you all for the reviews, favorites, and follows. I'm sorry it took me so long to update, but I hope you will enjoy this chapter. Next update should be this week.

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Rick put the last glass back in the cupboard, closed the empty dishwasher, put the towel down on the counter, and let a deep sight out. He was exhausted. The past few days had been intense, to say the least, and it was catching up with him. And he hardly slept last night, too many nightmares. He tried to change his mind by playing video games, watching movies or reading but he could not stay still long enough to immerse himself in anything.

He knew why: he had to deal with what Kate had told him earlier.

He should be happy, ecstatic even, by her confession of love this morning. He had been waiting for it for so long! But all he could feel was caution. Could Sophia have destroyed something in him?

It was driving him crazy not to be able to understand her story. How could such a good agent turn out to be so... He could not find the words to describe what she had done. The fact that she had lied to everyone at the CIA for years did not appease his anger one bit. There was also her comment about his dad. What was he supposed to think? She was going to kill him so why lie to him? He was sure she had enjoyed telling him his dad was CIA and that she knew him, especially as she did not intend to give him a chance to meet him. Boy, she was evil! That was the word. And to think he had slept with her!

Worse: he had based Clara Strike on her!

Rick shuddered at the thought. But he knew that whatever he felt towards Sophia, she was not his biggest problem right now. She was dead, she was not what mattered. His relationship with Kate was what mattered the most to him.

He needed a drink. He went to his bar, poured himself a whisky and went to his office.

But changing rooms wasn't helping. In here, the place where he let his imagination loose and wrote his stories, there was a reality he had tried not to face for some time.

Rick picked up the remote control on his desk, switched on his ridiculously large screen and brought up his own murder board of the Beckett case. And then he stared at his partner's picture.

So she loved him. Kate Beckett loved him. She had told him to his face a few hours earlier. But it would never have happened had they not worked on this CIA case. And that hurt him. She only told him the truth because she did not want to be like Sophia. It wasn't because she wanted to be with him now. In a way, he was disappointed and hurt. This wasn't the way he wanted their story to start. It was as if he wasn't enough for her to be honest with him. She confessed to him to protect her ego.

But still, he loved her. She was the most beautiful, challenging, complicated, smart woman he had ever met, and he was head over heels in love with her.

"What's up Kiddo?"

Castle jumped and screamed at the words and turned to see his mother standing at the entrance of his office looking at him. Boy, he was so immersed in his thoughts that he had not heard her coming home.

"Mother! You're home early" he said, trying to recompose himself. What time was it by the way? He did not expect her back before the beginning of the afternoon. Was the morning already gone?

"I just popped home to grab a jacket a bit more appropriate for the afternoon outing" she replied, walking into her son's office. He looked so tired, the dark circles under his eyes were unusually marked today. Something was wrong. One look at the screen gave her an idea as to what might be going on. "I've been home for at least five minutes and you haven't noticed. Given how intensely you were staring at the screen, I assume something came up on Detective Beckett's case and you don't know how to tell her."

Martha had told her son from the very beginning he should tell Katherine about his deal with the mysterious M. Smith. But he wanted to have something to give her before he'd tell her. They disagreed, and never mentioned it again. Until today.

"No Mother, it is not about Beckett's case" he replied, and then switched off the screen.

"What is it then?" Martha pushed him because if her son was in such a dark mood, she wanted to do something to help him, even if it was just listening to him. No mother wants to see her child hurt and unhappy. "And don't tell me nothing because I can tell something is eating you up and since you're looking at Katherine's picture, she's obviously involved. So what's wrong?"

Rick could of course tell his mother to let go and she would back off, not without first telling him not to be stubborn and that talking can be a good thing. But he felt so much in the dark that he realised he needed to talk it out. And on occasion; not that he would admit it in public, his mother had given him good advice when she recognised the subject was important to him. It didn't mean he always followed her advice, of course.

"I'm not sure, Mother" he said, as he sat down on his chair behind his desk. He took a big inhale and said "Beckett came by this morning to tell me that she'd heard me at the cemetery when I told her that I loved her." Castle looked at his mum and saw her smile. "She remembered since she woke up at the hospital but for reasons I haven't yet gotten my head around, she could not tell me."

"Oh, I see. Has she said how she feels about you?" Because Martha could not imagine the young woman not telling him how she felt if she had confessed knowing how he felt. Surely she must have said something!

"She said she loved me… eventually" her son replied in a low voice.

Something was terribly wrong "I don't understand Richard. What do you mean by eventually? What did she say exactly?"

"Kate said she's not ready to be with me like that. Her wall is still up. The truth is, Mother, I don't think she came clean to me today so we could be together. I think, actually I'm pretty certain she did it more for herself than for «us»." Castle did the inverted coma sign as he looked at her.

"I still don't understand" Martha repeated. She sat down on one of the chair in front of the desk.

"It's got to do with our latest case."

"The one you cannot talk about because it involves spies, national security and chess games?"

"Yes. Something happened during this case, and Beckett…" No, he should not start like that. "Do you remember when I was working on my Derrick Storm series, I got the opportunity to meet a CIA operative, a woman, whom I based Clara Strike on?"

"Yes, I remember, but I never met her."

"No, you didn't", _and thank God for that_, Castle thought. He had no intention to tell her the details of the case or what Sophia had said about his father. There was no point since he had no proof. "Well, she was involved in this case we just closed. Turns out she was a traitor and had lied to everybody for years. Kate and I were pushed in the Hudson on her orders. And then, she nearly killed us both herself."

"My God, Richard! Why didn't you tell me last night? You didn't have to be on your own after something like that!" Martha said, shocked that her son would not rely on her in a situation like that.

"I'm fine, mother…"

"Don't give me that nonsense, Richard! Have you looked at yourself in a mirror this morning? You do not look fine."

"Well, I'm tired but I'm not hurt or anything. I just have a lot on my mind."

"Because of that agent and Detective Beckett?"

Castle nodded. "I love her, Mother. But she lied to me for months when she knew how I felt about her. I don't know if I can trust her completely. »

It pained her to see her son so hurt. "What did Katherine say this morning, exactly?" Martha asked, forcing herself to calm down.

"That she needed me to know she wasn't like Sophia and she would never hurt me like that but she had lied to me."

"Did she say why she lied?"

"Fear. Anger. She said she needed time to heal. She's not ready to start a new relationship. If we get together now, she'll screw it up. She has to focus on finding her mum's killer and can't be distracted. The further away she keeps me from her, the safer I am. She's emotionally too dependent on me and needs to be whole again on her own before she can allow herself to love me fully. »

Martha takes a moment to think about what her son just said. « Sounds to me like Katherine needs you more than she is ready to admit."

Castle looked at his mother as if she had just say the Earth was flat.

"Well, obviously, her emotions are all over the place. Being so close to death, again, with you by her side, must have triggered something in her that made her realise she could not ignore her feelings for you anymore. She needs to be with you. And she needs you to know it. And of course there's the jealousy factor. I can't imagine Katherine being really happy to find out she isn't your only muse!"

"I don't know, Mother" said Castle. "I can't help thinking that if she was able to lie to me all these months then how can I trust her with my heart?"

She loved her son, more than anything in the world, but it really annoyed her when he was being this hypocrite. "Is it possible that you feel that way because you are not yourself entirely honest with her?"

Castle looked at his mother with hurt in his look, but he knew she was right. "You're talking about M. Smith."

Martha nodded. "Katherine found the courage to come to you and tell you something she has kept to herself for months. It takes a lot of courage to do something like that knowing that, by coming clean to the very person you love, you risk losing him. And it sounds like she is still dealing with the aftermath of her shooting so I find what she did this morning rather impressive. It might not be the declaration of love you were hoping for, but it is one nonetheless. She made the first step, Richard. And I know she said she needs more time, but Kiddo, you don't make that kind of move and expect nothing to change afterwards!"

"You think she's waiting for me to make my move even if she said she needs time?"

"I think she needs to know how you feel after your talk this morning and I doubt she will have a lot of patience waiting for you to go back to her with your decision. And I would not be surprised if she finds excuses to spend more time with you, not just at work but on your free time as well. And I think that's what you want too, deep down."

Rick nodded.

"But you cannot start your relationship with Katherine without first telling her about your deal with M. Smith. That would be disloyal."

"I did it to protect her" Rick said defensively.

"I know that but it's her mother's case, Richard. Hiding this deal while you are in a romantic relationship with her is proof that you do not trust her completely. Your relationship would be doomed from the beginning."

Rick exhaled deeply. "I know that. I know you're right, Mother. But I'm scared. What if she does not accept my explanations and just sends me away again?"

"That is probably what Katherine feared as well when she showed up at the door this morning. But she found the courage to go through with her decision and she obviously found the right words to explain everything to you. So surely, if she could do it, so can you."

"What if I can't find the right words and she sends me away?"

Boy, he really was working the worst-case scenario… "If everything falls apart at the first hurdle, then you weren't meant to be together. You know Katherine's attitude when it comes to her mother's case. So you will probably have to fight to make her see the situation from your point of view. And you'll need to make her understand that once you're together, she can't just go on her own at the first sight of a clue on that case. She will be part of our family as well. She can't shut us down because some clue turned up. She needs to decide what she wants more: a future with you, or closure on her mum's case."

"I'm scared of finding out the answer to that."

"There's only one way to be sure Richard. Now is the moment to fight for your happiness, yours and hers. And you know she's worth the fight." Martha got up, walked to her son and took his face in her hands, making him look at her. "Have faith Kiddo. Remember: love conquers all." She kissed him on the cheek and smiled at him. He smiled back at her. She had faith in him, he was going to do everything he could to get his girl.

His mother was right, about everything. He needed to talk to Beckett and come clean with her before things evolved between them. Deep down, he just knew they could be great together. She was the one for him and he could make her happy. In order to get the future he wanted, he had to tell her about his deal with M. Smith.

He just needed a plan to make sure she wouldn't kick him out of her life for ever for keeping from her a secret about the most important case of her life.


	7. Chapter 7

A/N: Thank you for the reviews and favorites. I'm really glad you guys like this story. I hope this chapter will meet your expectations. There's only 1 more chapter after this one and the story will be complete. Enjoy the read!

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It was early evening and Kate was alone at home. She was exhausted and restless at the same time. Between their latest case and her talk with Castle in the morning, she felt drained. But also happy in a way: she had come clean to Castle. There were no more secrets between them. If he could accept her reasons for lying to him all these months and forgive her, then they had a chance together.

She had called Lanie earlier on, to tell her about her visit to Castle. Talking with her friend, she had decided to wait until Castle contacted her. She could give him the time he needed to process it all, it was the least she could do for him. She only hoped he would contact her before Monday morning so they could sort out a few things before going back to work, like her mom's case, how their discussion this morning might affect their working relationship… She really wanted that discussion with him. Hopefully so did he…

She was about to switch the TV on when she heard the ping on her mobile. A new message. She went to the kitchen counter where she had left her phone.

It was from Castle.

**can we talk?**

Kate froze. Was it a good thing that he wanted to talk now, just a few hours after their last conversation? It was what she wanted but to see him make the move was suddenly scary to her.

And usually, Castle just showed up at the door when he had something to say to her. How was she supposed to take his text? Good omen? Bad one?

_Well, that was what you wanted. No point delaying your reply to him,_ she thought. But rather than texting him back, she decided to call him. If she could hear his voice, she'd have an idea as to which direction he wanted their talk to go.

He picked up on the second ring.

"Hi Castle, it's me" Kate said, trying to keep her voice as neutral as possible. She didn't want him to think that she'd been waiting for him all day long to contact her.

"Hi Beckett. You got my text."

The seriousness she could pick up in his voice worried her. "Yes." She did not dare say more.

"I was wondering if maybe we could meet."

His voice was a bit more hesitant now. What was she supposed to make of it?

"Sure Castle. When do you want to meet?" she asked, as her heartbeat accelerated. She had to remember to breath.

"Well, it's still early so I thought we could maybe meet now?"

_And get this over with_, Kate thought immediately. Deep breath in before she answered. "Now's fine. Where?"

He took a few seconds before replying. Was he so surprised she was willing to meet him now?

"Can I come over? Alexis is at home tonight and I'd prefer if it was just you and me."

_He's dumping me. He can't forgive me._ She closed her eyes and did her best to keep her voice still. "OK. I'll wait for you then."

"Be there in 30."

"Good." Kate hung up and grabbed hold of her kitchen table with both hands. She forced herself to breathe deeply several times, her eyes still closed. She could not break down now, not before he came here to say what he had to say. She could not let her fears overwhelm her and bring her on the verge of a panic attack. She had about 30 minutes to compose herself. After a few breaths, Kate started to feel her heart beating at a slower rate. She opened her eyes.

She was OK. He just wanted to talk. And to see her in private. So maybe he wanted to tell her that he had forgiven her, that he loved her and he wanted them to discuss the next step, whatever it was.

But he could have said that over phone, or just showed up at her door, no need to request a meeting for that.

«Oh, get a grip woman!» Kate said to herself. «You chase murderers for a living! Surely you can handle a conversation with Castle that will define your whole future! He wants to see you. It's much better than when he broke up with Gina over the phone. Just focus on the chance you have to convince him that you meant what you said earlier. Now stop talking to yourself and go get ready!»

Kate changed into a pair of jeans that she knew did wonders to outline her curves and a white short sleeve v neck tee-shirt that covered the belt of her jeans. She had enough time left to prepare some coffee.

When she heard the knock on the front door, she was determined not to let this be the last conversation they would ever have.

Kate opened the door, and there he was. Hands in his jeans' pockets, a black vest over a blue shirt, one of her favourites.

"Hi" Kate said with a smile.

"Hi Beckett" he said, returning her smile.

"Come in" her voice got stronger, in hope that the smile on his face meant that he was here to give them a chance as a couple.

She closed the door behind him and followed him to the kitchen. Her eyes landed on his neck and she wished she could touch the skin between his hair and his jacket. She imagined it very smooth to the touch. And if she could touch him there, it meant that she'd be in his arms and boy did she want to be there! But for the time being, she just had to do with her imagination. Her eyes lowered to his back and then his ass. Even though his jacket was covering it, she could not help lingering on that part of his anatomy and smile.

They had to have a chance.

Kate met him in front of her kitchen island and looked at him. She could see hesitation, fear, determination. This wasn't going to be a smooth walk in the park.

"You wanted to talk to me" Kate said to break the uncomfortable silence.

"Yes" Castle said.

As he looked straight at her, Kate could not help remembering again the last time they'd had such a conversation at her place. They had argued, she had thrown him out of her condo, out of her life, and then Montgomery had died. She had been shot. Everything had gone to hell after that talk.

"I've spent the whole day thinking about our talk of this morning" Castle said with some hesitation even himself could hear in his voice. He was risking it all, but what choice did he have? "I haven't been able to do anything else actually. I've even talked it over with my mother. And I've come to the realisation that even if I don't like the fact that you've been lying to me all these months, and that I have no way of knowing if or when you would have come clean to me if it hadn't be for this case with the CIA and Sophia, I'm glad you came to me this morning. I know it took you a lot of courage to tell me the truth after all this time and I wanted you to know that I'm really glad you did it."

"Thank you Castle" Kate said with a big smile. "I'm glad I did as well. I think it cleared the air. And we deserve better than living with this cloud over our heads. I mean, obviously, I was the only one knowing there was a cloud in the first place, but it wasn't something I was comfortable with, you need to understand that…"

"Kate" Castle interrupted her, raising his hand between them to stop her babbling away. "Kate it's OK. I've been waiting for a long time to hear you say that you loved me, and even if this wasn't really the declaration that I had imagined, what matters is that you said these words to me. And what you did this morning, coming to me to tell me a secret you had kept for several months, it made me realise that I owed you just as much."

"What do you mean?" she asked, puzzled.

"You had your secret, and I have mine." Castle took a deep breath in. "_Here goes nothing_" he thought. "There is something that I have kept from you since you've been back. Something to do with your mother's case."

It felt like she had been punched in the chest. Surely she heard him wrong? He wasn't saying what she thought he meant.

He's had a lead on her mom's case and he hasn't said anything?

"You… What?" were the only words she could muster.

"After you came back, you started digging in your mom's case again. I got a phone call one evening. He said his name was M. Smith. He said he was a friend of Montgomery's and that at his request, he could ensure your safety, as long as you stopped investigating your mother's murder."

Her mind could not process what he was saying. She heard his words, but all together, they did not make sense.

"M. Smith said that Montgomery had a file on the man behind the whole case. Before he died, Montgomery sent it to him, asking him to contact the Dragon and continue the deal he had with him. No harm was to come to you, or the file would be made public. But M. Smith was out of town when the file arrived, so he could only contact the Dragon after you were shot. When you came back and started digging again, he called me. He said the only way he could guarantee your protection was to make sure you would not investigate this case anymore. My job was to make sure you wouldn't, I was to divert your attention from anything potentially linked to it."

"Your job? You made a deal?" she asked incredulous. "You had a lead on my mom's case and you made a deal on my life without telling me anything about it?!" Her voice went crescendo. "What were you thinking? How could you imagine, even for one second, that it was OK for you to make a decision about my life?"

Her anger sparked his own. "You're right Kate, I'm the bad guy here. I made the decision to do everything I could to keep you safe. Is it so hard for you to understand that maybe seeing the woman I love die in my arms from a bullet in the heart once was enough of a reason for me to try and do everything I could to make sure it would never happen again!"

"You don't get to make decisions for me Castle! I'm not a child. I'm a cop. It's my job to bring criminals to justice."

"But it's not any case Kate! This is the case that took your mother away from you when you were still a kid. It nearly killed you too! We are not dealing with any criminal here. The Dragon has got connections, money, power, influence. He managed to remain hidden all these years and he's not giving up his position and security so easily. As much as I would like to believe that you will place your handcuffs around this bastard's wrists one day, I know we won't get there anytime soon. The only way we can do that is by outsmarting him, and this requires time, discreet investigations, preparation of some sort of a plan of attack. Which is exactly what you never do on your mom's case Kate, and you know that. You just dive head first into whatever clue turns up and you ignore everything else. And that is what will get you killed."

"You don't know that!"

"Yes I do! It happened once, and I sure as hell am not ready to witness it again!"

The man was so full of himself! Who did he think he was? How could he belittle her like that and think he was right to do so?

"It doesn't give you the right to make decisions for me, and most certainly not about my mom's case! How can we be partners if I can't trust you to tell me everything?"

"That's low Kate. You know you can trust me. I'll always have your back."

"As long as I behave like you want, is that it? What was it? Payback for not keeping in touch while I was recovering from a bullet wound to the heart you could not save me from?"

Castle took a step back and diverted his eyes from her. He could not look at her anymore, not after those words. He had hoped she'd understand his actions were motivated only by his love for her, but apparently, it was too much to ask her. His heart was crushed, but he wasn't going to let her admire her handiwork. "If that's what you think of me Beckett" he said in a low voice, defeated, "then there is nothing more for me to say."

If her mom's case was all that mattered to her at the end of the day, who was he to try to offer her a life? Clearly no one she wanted by her side. He thought he knew her, but he was wrong.

"If all that matters is your mom's case, I'll have all my notes sent to you. You can solve it on your own, or die trying. But I won't be there to watch you throwing your life away for it. I can't do that. Goodbye Detective." And with that, he walked towards her front door. This had a bitter taste of déjà vu and before he could stop his mind, he saw her again dying in his arms after a similar argument. He truly hoped this wasn't history repeating itself.

"Castle wait!"

He stopped, half way to the door. "Why? So you can insult me some more?" he asked, not even bothering to turn around to face her.

"I'm sorry" Kate said, her voice trembling. She was struggling to control her temper. Right now she hated herself for what she had said to him. She had let her fears and her anger take control and it was as if all that she's been talking about with Lanie since the previous night had never happened. Deep down, she knew he never chose to make the deal as a revenge for her silence over the summer. It was a stupid thing to think. He wasn't that kind of a man. What scared her was the risks he was willing to take to keep her safe. Hearing him telling her of the deal and why, she realised that this man would go to hell and back for her. Was it really possible to love someone like that? And if it was, could it last? Could she love him like that?

He was still facing the door but he had turned his head a bit to the left. He had heard her apology but was obviously waiting for more. She could not mess this up.

"Lanie warned me. She told me my attitude to my mom's case was going to be a problem. Because once you and I are together, I can't just follow any lead as I've done until now, with no regards to the consequences except finding him. I tell her she's right, that you and I need to talk about it, that I'm willing to change for you, for us, and look what happens! First mention of a lead and I'm at your throat! But I never thought you'd be able to keep a secret like this from me. Mind you, I never thought that of Montgomery either!"

Kate looked at Castle. He had not moved at all. She breathed in deeply, removed a tear from her jaw and decided to be as honest with him as she had ever been.

"I don't know if you have it in you to forgive me for the words I just said, Rick. I know that you had only the best intentions when you made this deal. I don't want you to go. After what I've done to you this year, I can't blame you for wanting to protect me from this Dragon, from myself even." It was becoming more difficult to fight those damn tears. God, she was a mess! "I knew I wasn't ready to talk to you this morning, but I just could not go on like this anymore."

"Why?" Castle asked as he turned around. "What changed? Was it meeting one of my exes? Finding out you were not my only muse?"

Castle was facing her now. He wasn't leaving anymore. He had more questions. He was staying here. And she was going to make sure he would not regret it.

"No" she answered, looking straight at him. "At first, I thought it was because of her, what she had been to you. But no, it wasn't just because I was jealous of what you two had." She took a second before continuing, to make sure her thoughts were in the right order. "I can't stand the thought of anything happening to you. When we were in the Hudson, I thought you had drowned. And I didn't want to get out of the car if you weren't going to either. I didn't think about anyone else, just you. If I wasn't able to save you, then there was no reason for me to live anymore. I don't know how you managed to survive and get us out of there but that was the moment I knew I had to accept my feelings for you. I had come too close to losing you again. When we were on the pier and you held me, I would have given anything to stay in your arms forever. You make me laugh, you make me feel alive, and safe, and loved. I've never had that before, never believed it could happen to me before. But you changed everything. And I'm sorry I could not protect you from Sophia. The pain she caused you, I wish I could take it away." Kate chuckled at her words, unable to fight the tears any longer. "I told you I wasn't ready. I'm a mess. You deserve better, Castle, someone stronger and not so complicated. If you can't forgive me for what I said, I'll understand." At that, Kate retreated to her living room and sat down on her sofa, her head in her hands.

Rick was at a loss. What exactly did she want? One minute, she was at his throat, the next she asked for his forgiveness. She was driving him crazy. But looking at her sat on the sofa, crying, she looked so lost. It hurt.

He walked closer to her to stand a few feet from her. "I don't want to lose you, Kate. I want us to figure this out and give us a chance" Castle said "but I can't be in this alone. You have to know what you want as well Kate. Nobody but you can make this decision."

"So I have to choose between you and my mom's case?"

"No. I'm asking you to decide whether you want to include me in your life or not. Because I know we can be great together Kate. I can make you happy, but only if you are willing to live a bit for yourself. You have to decide to live in the present, not in the past."

"I can't give up my mom's case, Castle" Kate said, looking up at him. "I've come too far now."

"I know. And I would never ask you to drop it. All I'm asking, is that you stop thinking it's you against the Dragon and ignore the people around you who love you. I'm asking you to accept the fact that this case requires a new approach, that you need our help, Ryan, Esposito and me, to put a plan in place so we can bring this guy to justice. The only way we can do this is by taking him by surprise. Because he's got all his bases covered. He's had years to protect himself and his actions. There's no way we can arrest him if you follow any lead as soon as it presents itself and as openly as you've done it until now. You need a new approach, Kate."

"And how would it work?" she asked as she got up. "I'm a cop, that was what I do. I follow every clue to where it leads, that's how I catch killers! So what? I ignore it? I pretend I do not see it? How long do you advise I wait before I can look into it?"

Castle knew she was getting all worked up again because she had no control at all with this case and it terrified her to be so helpless. She had to find another option and he wanted to be part of it. "This is what we need to talk about" he replied calmly. And he could see she had not expected this answer from him because she was surprised by his words. "I'm not saying I've got everything figured out but things have to change Kate, because otherwise, he will win. And you'll die without knowing who he is."

Lanie had said the same thing to her. So had her dad. And Montgomery. She knew somehow that they were right, but it was so hard to let go! She had made so much progress in this case since Castle reopened it that she could not bring herself to close it again now and put it back in a box just because it was getting too dangerous.

There had to be some balance somewhere. She just had to find it. And she had the best of motivation for that now: Rick. She wanted to find her mom's killer, but she also wanted him. This want was new, different, attractive and irresistible. Could she have everything? Maybe not, but looking at him here in her living room, fighting for the two of them to have a chance together, she sure wanted to believe she could have a life with him. So what if she had to compromise even before they got involved together? He was not asking her to give up her search, just to change her approach. She could do that. She wanted to do that if it meant she could have a life with him. Because deep down, she wanted to believe that they could be great together. It scared her sometimes how she could so easily imagine a life with him, a happy life, happily ever after as the fairy tales said. Something she stopped believing in after she lost her mom. But this amazing man in front of her had made her want to believe in happily ever afters again. With him.

"If I promise not to jump head first when something comes up in the case, you have to promise never to keep anything from me again? No more secrets. Ever."

She's making a bargain! She is seriously considering his demand and telling him that she's willing to change her tactics when not even 5 minutes earlier she was screaming at him and was ready to bite his head off! God he loved that woman!

Oh but hold on, there was a problem.

The big smile on his face that had showed up when she had asked for his promise suddenly disappeared. No! What was going on?

"We are only talking about the case, right? This no secret policy doesn't apply to birthdays and anniversaries and Christmas or Valentine's day, does it? Because I can't agree to that!"

"Seriously, Castle?!"

"Yes, of course, I'm serious! Because I intend to spoil you on these days and it will be a secret until the moment you discover what I've planned for you."

"Castle, I don't want you to spoil me, I just want you to love me."

Kate realised what she was saying the second the words were out of her mouth. And then she smiled. She had no idea saying these words would be so liberating. Probably because they were true.

"I can do both" he said with the biggest smile on his face. "I want to do both."

She loved it when he smiled so wholeheartedly, he looked like a kid on Christmas morning, when he's opening all his presents. She found it very difficult not to smile as well.

"I want to do both as well" she said softly.

Their eyes were locked on each other and Kate felt like they had just sealed their relationship. A bit like a marriage vow but somehow more intimate because it was the first time they were having such a personal conversation where they both were 100% honest with one another and they were moving together in the same direction. Somehow, they had found each other.

It made everything else look so much easier.

"OK" said Kate, "the no more secret policy only applies to cases we'll work together, and my mom's case."

"Then I promise" Castle said immediately.

"Good" said Kate "because I promise too." And just like that she felt lighter than ever. Nothing stood in her way to happiness with Castle. She understood now that all she had needed since she remembered his love declaration at Montgomery's funerals was a confirmation that his feelings hadn't changed, that he still loved her, that he was genuinely there for her and not his books. She suspected it, she hoped for it, but she wasn't sure.

Somehow she knew her wall had disappeared tonight. Because she felt like nothing held her back from going to him right now, put her arms around his neck and bring his head down to hers so their lips could touch. Their first kiss. Well, technically it was their second, but this one, this one was going to lead to something so much better than an arrest for murder and assault on police officers!

His tongue asked for access to her mouth and she granted it gladly. As their kiss deepened, she lowered her hands to his neck, then his chest, insinuated them under his jacket so they could follow their journey to his back. Then she brought her body close to his, so close that there was no space left between them. One of his hands remained on her neck while the other went down to her ass and gripped it hard. She moaned in his mouth. Eventually the need for air became too strong and she brook their kiss. He brought his forehead to hers, not ready to break the contact yet. She opened her eyes to look at him. His eyes were closed and his breathing as laboured as hers. He was so beautiful.

"Stay" she whispered.

He opened his eyes, moved his head back a bit to look at her. His eyes went from her eyes to her lips and then back to her eyes again. She could see his desire in the way he looked at her and she felt her own grow stronger. Kate removed her hands from his back, and moved away from him, just enough to grab one of his hand. She intertwined her fingers with his and lead him to her bedroom. He let her take him away.


	8. Chapter 8

It wasn't supposed to take this long for me to publish this last chapter. But when I reviewed the one I had ready to publish, I didn't like it anymore... So I had to rework it. And it took longer than I would have liked. But I hope it was worth it and that you will like it.

I would like to thank all you readers who followed and commented this story. It was really an amazing experience. Writing is a lonely hobby, so to see my first story well received, people being interested in it and even taking the time to write a comment and press the follow button, it made me very happy. And it also made me appreciate even more all of you who write fan fictions. A special thank you to Castle4Eva for making me aware of the differences between British English and American English. I had never really paid attention to it before, but now I know! So from the bottom of my heart, thank you!

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18 months later. At the loft.

Kate walked into their bedroom and went straight to her dresser. Then she removed her watch and placed it on top of the dresser. A gesture she did every night, it's been part of her bedtime routine for so long. But tonight, as she looked at the photo of her parents she had placed there as soon as she had moved into the loft with Castle, she stopped.

They were so young on that photo, so in love. Her mom and dad. They had their whole lives ahead of them, plans to work on, dreams to make real. But they never did. Never had a chance. Because William Bracken had her mother killed for pocking around too close to him and she had to be stopped. 14 years ago, evil entered her life and it had changed her forever.

But today, she got her chance to put things right.

She had done it. Today she arrested the man who had ordered her mother's murder. She found the evidence against him and now, he was behind bars. And she was the one who put him there. It had taken her 14 years!

14 years during which Senator William Bracken had lived his perfect life without a second thought about the lives he had destroyed. And all this for the sole purpose of achieving his goals of power, fame and fortune. This morning, he was campaigning to become the next President of the United States of America. Tonight, he was in jail.

14 years of anger, agony, despair. Kate had been through all the emotions one could experience when losing a loved one without knowing why that person had to go. 14 years of wondering if she'd ever find the truth. 14 years of feeling like a failure because she could not give her dad the justice and closure she gave her victims' families.

But all that had changed now. Today, she placed her handcuffs around the wrists of the man who had ordered her mom's murder, she read him his rights, brought him back to the precinct and put him in a cell.

Tonight, William Bracken was spending the first night of the rest of his life in jail.

She was home with her family.

All the lives that had been broken, lost, because of that man. No doubt she was going to find many more people Bracken had hurt over the years. It didn't stop with her mom's case. That was only the tip of the iceberg, she knew it.

Why did she feel so empty? She achieved so much today; shouldn't she be happy, euphoric even? Over the moon? But she wasn't feeling any of that. Just tired. Immensely tired. And yes, OK, the past 48 hours had been among the most stressful she'd ever lived, so no wonder she was tired. But this was huge. She arrested the person who ordered her mother's murder 14 years ago, it had been her main goal all those years, but now, it was as if she could not feel anything at all! What was wrong with her?

She had lost her mom, her mentor, nearly lost her dad, nearly died herself several times, nearly lost her job and the best relationship she ever had, nearly ended up in jail. All because of William Bracken. And now, he was the one in jail while she was at home with her family.

Kate looked at the photo of her parents again and tried to smile. She removed the chain with her mom's ring from around her neck. The ring sat in the hollow of her hand. Very softly, her fingers caressed it.

"I did it Mom" Kate said, looking at the photo again, trying to feel something. "I found him and the evidence you had, and now he's in jail. Your death wasn't for nothing." It was such an achievement!

But how can you celebrate anything when the person you want to share your success with the most is no longer here?

This ring and that photo were all she had left of her mom. And her memories... 14 years without her mom...

It started at the pit of her stomach and went straight to her throat. An overwhelming sense of sorrow enveloped her so fast, she did not have time to register it was happening. And out of nowhere, the tears came up. She started gasping, tried to regain control of her emotions and her body but she failed.

She had solved her mom's case, but her mom was still absent.

Kate cried, for the person she missed the most, for all that had been stolen from her since that January day when one person decided that Johanna Beckett was getting in his way. He removed a piece on his chessboard, and she lost the most important person in her life. It was so unfair.

* * *

In the kitchen, Castle was finishing cleaning after the family diner. All was back to normal. His mother and Alexis were now in their beds upstairs, his soon-to-be father-in-law was staying in the guest room tonight, and his fiancée was getting ready for bed.

Thinking about the past 48 hours, it amazed him how, once again, Kate and him had nearly lost everything. Bracken surpassed himself this time. He confronted Beckett face to face one last time, before he ordered two of his thugs to murder her, making it look like a suicide. The idea was that Kate killed herself because she was a corrupted cop and knew she was cornered and had nowhere to go but prison. Bracken could not afford to let Kate live while he was running for the White House. She knew too much about him and could destroy him. So he had to get rid of her, just like he had gotten rid of Johanna all those years ago. And he had gotten away with so much over the years that he was confident it would be the same thing this time.

But Bracken had never really understood who Kate Beckett was, how strong, resilient and smart she was. She managed to break free from his men, and she and Castle solved the case. Come to think of it, it wasn't the first time Bracken misjudged someone. Captain Roy Montgomery had been so smart in this whole case. All the things he had done to protect his family, and Kate as well. The way he sacrificed himself to keep Kate alive still chilled Castle. But he had done more than that. For a rookie as he was then, to make a recording of a meeting with Bracken, it took balls. And what a recording it was! Bracken could clearly be heard say that he was used to getting rid of people who were in his way, and that he was working on "that bitch Johanna Beckett". The recording was proof that he was corrupted. Montgomery had taken a huge risk when he made this recording, but it paid off eventually. Without it, Bracken would still be free. To think that Kate and him only found out about its existence a few hours ago... That it was Montgomery who had made the recording. That he gave it to Johanna for safe keeping. That Johanna had placed the tape in her parade of elephants she loved so much. That Kate loved this ornament so much that she placed it on her desk at the precinct not knowing what it hid.

In a way, it was really frustrating to Castle to know that the evidence they had been looking for was waiting for them on Beckett's desk. How many times had he held this parade of elephants in his hand? And not once had it crossed his mind that Johanna might have used it to hide a piece of evidence linked to the case. Given his wild and creative imagination, Castle was a bit annoyed with himself. Because that was one hell of a twist! He had to give it to Johanna, that had been a very clever move. What was the saying again? Oh yes: hidden in plain sight! The evidence had been hidden in the parade of elephants Kate had placed on her desk at the precinct because it used to belong to her mother. The evidence had been in a police precinct all these years, and nobody knew! Now, wasn't that ironic!

Castle smiled. He always had a feeling he would have liked Johanna Beckett. Not just because she was Kate's mother and had a great taste in authors, but because she was resourceful, passionate, loving, smart. There was a lot of her in Kate.

Castle went through the living room and started switching off the lights and making sure the loft was secured for the night. He hoped that they could start to put this case to rest now. The trial would be a big step as well, no doubt about that. He expected Bracken and his lawyers to fight every possible angle to find a technically that would save the crooked politician from a trial. But that recording was their main piece of evidence and it was damaging for Bracken. Bracken knew that his political career was over. His life as he knew it was over.

And hopefully Kate and her dad would now be able to enjoy life without this sadness that was linked to not knowing exactly why Johanna wasn't by their sides anymore. A lot of good things happened today, and Castle hoped they would keep it in their hearts forever, that these moments would help make her absence a bit easier to bear now. Like the phone call Kate was finally able to make to her dad to tell him she was going to arrest Bracken. She called him just before they left the precinct to go and arrest Bracken because she didn't want him to find out from anyone else. Castle had decided not to go with Beckett for the actual arrest. It was something Kate had to do on her own he thought. So he waited outside by the car (for once!). But he watched it on the news later on since Bracken was in the middle of an interview, discussing his programme for his campaign to become the next President of the United States of America. The look on Bracken's face when he saw Beckett walking in straight to him, and when she said the famous words he never expected to hear directed to him, certainly not from Beckett's mouth. And then there was the walk into the Precinct.

That had been quite an experience. He had not been expecting everyone at the precinct to welcome them as they had. But when the doors of the elevator opened and he saw all the officers gathered in the corridor, applauding and congratulating Beckett, it had felt to him like the officers were all behind Kate. They knew what this case had meant to her, all that she had gone through because of it. And for them to drop what they were doing to applaud her as she was bringing Bracken in, it was something he would never forget. It showed what a family these people were.

What had touched him the most was to see Captain Gates, and LT around Jim, and being very close to him as Kate and Bracken were walking up to them. Castle had never seen Jim so closed up, he could see on his face the hatred he felt for Bracken, and he had wondered if Jim was going to punch Bracken. And just as they walked past, he saw LT positioning himself just before Jim on his right, Gates mirroring him on Jim's left side. If Jim decided to make a move, he would be stopped right away. LT told Castle later on that they had kept an eye on Jim Beckett all the time he'd been at the precinct because they were worried about his reaction when he was going to come face to face with his wife's murderer. They didn't want him to suffer any more than he already had because of Bracken. They knew seeing Bracken in the precinct, under arrest, was going to be a lot for him and more often than not, people do stupid things when they are under extreme situations such as this one. Beckett had worked too hard to get to this point, they were not going to let anything jeopardise her victory, not even her dad. And maybe punching the living daylights out of Bracken would make Jim feel better as it happened, but it would threaten the case and the detective would be disappointed. So they made sure nothing would get in her way. Castle didn't know if Kate had noticed this, they hadn't had time to talk about it. But he sure wasn't going to forget it.

Once he was satisfied that the loft was secured for the night, Castle went to his bedroom. Tomorrow, he wanted them to do something as a family. Something nice, that would celebrate life, love, and the future. They deserved it. There was the problem of the media that, no doubt, would be behind their every step. But they could dodge them, surely. They'd think of something. They deserved a break from this craziness Bracken had brought into their lives. Maybe they could go to the Hamptons, and enjoy the quietness of the place. Both Kate and her dad were exhausted after today, and a change of scenery would probably help them relax. Or they could go back to Coney Islands...

As he walked through his office and arrived to his bedroom, he called for his fiancée. "Kate? I was thinking. Maybe we should... Kate?"

Castle stopped right at the door in complete shock. He found Kate bent over the dresser; one hand in a fist resting on top of the piece of furniture, the other on her mouth. Her whole body was shacking and her face was tense with grief.

Castle rushed to Kate and took her in his arms.

"What is it Kate? What's wrong?" he asked, incapable to hide the panic in his voice.

Kate put her arms around him and held him close, her head in the crook of his neck. She was crying and didn't seem to able to calm down. She could not think; the pain was too great.

"Shhh... It's OK. You're home Kate. You're safe." Shit! What was he supposed to say? How could he help? He didn't even know what was wrong! All he knew was that the woman he loved was in pain and needed him to hold her. So he did just that. He held her closer and kept whispering that she was OK and safe.

"She's gone" Kate eventually managed to say. "She's gone Castle."

Her mom. She was grieving her mom again. He had never lost someone close like Kate had lost her mom, so he was a bit surprised that even after all these years, she still had tears to cry over her mother, especially in such a strong way. He had always thought that solving the case once and for all, bringing Bracken to justice with irrefutable evidence would be a celebration, that it would allow her to put the case behind her and live the life she deserved. But he was wrong. Closing the case was bringing all these emotions back to the surface and it was like losing her mom all over again. What could he do to help?

"I know Kate. I'm sorry."

Her tears renewed and she hid her face in his chest. Castle could feel her body shaking so he decided to carry her to their bed. With one knee on the mattress, he placed her on top of the bed very carefully and then lied next to her and brought their bodies together. He took her in his arms, intertwined their legs and brought the cover over her body. Then he talked to her. About how loved she was by so many people, the lives she had touched by bringing justice to the victims and their families, how her mom still lived in her heart and her father's, how proud she would be of the relationship with her Dad and of her as well, for solving her case, but mostly for the life she was making for herself.

He held her like this for a long time and kept whispering to her.

After some time, Kate realised he was talking to her about her mom, their lives together, their families, how her mom would fit so perfectly in their lives, how Johanna and his mother would be great friends. She focused on his voice and his words, and slowly she calmed down.

Once he noticed she had stopped crying, he kissed her forehead and held her even closer. She could fall asleep like this if she wanted, it was fine by him.

His arms had always been a safe place for Kate. When he was holding her, it was as if time stopped and she could have a rest, just take a minute to breath. And right now, that was all she needed.

Sensations started to come back in her body. She started to stretch her legs a bit but kept her body close to his. She needed the contact. Her left hand was hurting. She brought her arm from underneath his body to between them and opened her hand. Her mom's ring was in it and her palm was red where the ring and her nails had left their imprints.

She looked at the ring. "This is all I have left of her" she said with a broken voice. "I've solved her case, but this is still all I have left of her." she raised her eyes to Castle's. "It's not fair" she added, tears falling again.

"No, it's not" Castle confirmed, trying not to cry too because right now she needed him strong, but damn, it was so hard to see her in pain like this.

"We did it, Rick" Kate said, as she removed the tears from her face with the back of her hand and looked at him. "We found the man who ordered her death, he's behind bars now. I put him there myself, I wrote the report of his arrest, wrote the whole story in it. I secured the evidence. I dreamt of that day for years. But even though I keep on telling myself all that, it still doesn't feel real, you know?"

"It happened Kate. I was there, I witnessed everything, it really happened. You are not imagining all this."

"Maybe it's just going to get me some time to grasp it. Placing the handcuffs around his wrists was so incredible" she smiled as she said the words. "I think that maybe I focussed so much on how I'd feel if I could arrest him that I never thought about anything else. I never thought of afterwards." Kate looked at the ring again. "Nothing has changed. I have my answers but she's still gone."

Castle kissed her forehead and held her closer. "I'm sorry" he said. "I wish there was something I could do or say to make this better but I can't. I'm so sorry. I know you miss her every day."

"I do. I do miss her. There's not a day that goes by when I don't think about her, what she would do, if she'd approve of my decisions, what advice she'd give me... It's been harder lately, with all the wedding preparations".

"But today is different."

"It's like I'm losing her again" Kate said, fighting a new wave of tears, "and it still hurts so much." The tears won. She snuggled to Castle again.

"It's grief Kate. Don't fight it. Let it go."

There was nothing else he could do but hold her and he was really good at it!

Kate managed to regain some control. It was the first time this kind of breakdown happened with Castle by her side. And it made such a difference. Instead of crying alone in bed, she was in his arms and he was so reassuring, helpful, and loving. She didn't want to think about how things could be different if she was to go through this alone. Because she pushed him away so many times...

Her life would be so different if it weren't for him...

She had made so many mistakes with him. It was hard for her to understand why he hadn't moved on. When she told him that she had been lying to him for months, that she remembered him saying that he loved her when she was shot, she had been scared to death of losing him forever. But no, he stayed by her side, fought for the two of them, and they had even recovered from that.

This man, his wonderful heart, his beautiful mind. He changed everything for her. He changed her life!

Kate untangled herself from her fiancé's body. He let her go but she felt his reluctance. She took his face between her hands and kissed him.

"Thank you" she said when she broke their kiss. "Thank you, Rick."

"What for?" Castle asked at a loss. "I haven't done anything! I've just been holding you."

Kate shook her head. "No babe, you've done so much more. You are doing so much more." She smiled at him and caressed his face. "You found a lead. You never left my side even when I pushed you away. You never gave up on us. You made me understand that I had to rethink my approach to the case if I wanted to get my answers. But most of all, you made me understand that my life was more than the case. That my life could be beautiful if only I was willing to put my happiness first. And there would be nothing wrong with that. And you were so right! I've solved the case, and I'm not alone. I've got Espo and Ryan and Lanie. You, Martha and Alexis. I've got my dad." Kate suppressed her tears. "Do you know what he told me earlier? That today was just as hard for him as the day we lost her. He wanted a drink. He's struggling today. But instead of giving in, he called his sponsor. They are meeting tomorrow. I thought Martha's attitude towards him tonight was strange, she was all over him and not drinking any alcohol. But I think she knew. That's probably why she insisted that he sleeps here tonight. So that he's not alone and we can help him if he needs us. It wasn't just so the press would not harass him at home. Martha knew he shouldn't be left on his own, that he needed his family around him. I was so much in my head that I didn't even think about it. You have a terrific mother, Rick. And I love her very much."

Castle was getting more emotional. "She loves you too, Kate. Just please don't tell her she's terrific or she'll be even more of a diva than she already is and trust me, if someone can do it, it's her!"

Kate laughed in his chest. "I love you so much." She breathed him in and looked at him again. "You gave my life meaning, Rick. You gave me a family. You make me happy. I never really believed that I could get all this, certainly not before I could solve her case. I cannot wait to be married to you."

"I love you too Kate. And I just know our life together will be amazing."

Kate felt so happy and so sad, she was smiling and crying at the same time. And she was so tired. She kissed him again and then pressed her forehead to his.

"I'm sorry I'm so all over the place tonight. Not really the evening you expected, is it?"

"You're in my arms Kate. That's how I want to spend all my nights ever since we got together."

Kate nestled against him. "I love you" she said again, closing her eyes and letting sleep take her over in the safety of his arms. They were safe. All the people she loved were safe tonight. And she had her man in her arms.

"I love you too" Castle said softly. "Always".


End file.
